THE  JAMES  K.   MOFFITT  FUND. 


LIBRARY  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


GIFT  OF 

JAMES  KENNEDY  MOFFITT 

OF  THE  CLASS  OF  '86. 


'T^eceived  ,  i8g     . 

Accession  No.     82  8  4.5.     Class  No 


l97? 


A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 


BY  THE  SAMB  AUTHOR. 


THE  KING  OF  THE   BRONCOS,  and  Other 

Tale*   of   New    Mexico.      l2mo.      Illustrated. 

$1.25. 
A  NEW    MEXICO    DAVID,    and    Other  Storiea 

and    Sketches    of    the    South-West.       l2mo. 

Illustrated.     $1.25. 
A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT.   l2mo. 

$1.25. 
THE  LAND  OF  POCO  TIEMPO.    8vo.    Illuf 

trated.    $2.50. 


A  TRAMP 


ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 


BY 


CHARLES  F.   LUMMIS 

AoTHOm  OF  "A  New  Mexico  David,"  "Stiuko«  Cokmbm 

OF  OUX  COUMTKY,"  STC. 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1900 


COPYRIGHT,  1892,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 


To 
CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER 

THIS  LITTLE    INSTALMENT  ON  A 
LARGE   DEBT 


82845 


PREFACE 


I  WOULD  have  this  unpretentious  book  taken 
oaly  for  what  it  is  —  the  wayside  notes  of  a  happy 
vagabondizing.  It  was  written  in  hurried  moments 
by  the  coal-oil  lamps  of  country  hotels,  the  tallow 
dips  of  section-house  or  ranch,  the  smoky  pine- 
knots  of  the  cowboy's  or  the  hunter's  cabin,  the 
crackling  fogon  of  a  Mexican  adobe,  or  the  snapping 
greasewood  of  my  lonely  campfire  upon  the  plains ; 
and  from  that  vagrant  body  and  spirit  I  have  not 
tried  to  over-civilize  it.  A  prim  chronicle  of  such 
a  trip  would  be  no  chronicle  at  all.  Nor  have  I 
desired  to  make  it  either  an  atlas  or  an  encyclo- 
paedia of  the  country.  Economic  and  geographic 
essays  do  not  belong  within  its  scope.  It  is  merely 
a  truthful  record  of  some  of  the  experiences  and 
impressions  of  a  walk  across  the  continent  —  the 
diary  of  a  man  who  got  outside  the  fences  of  civil- 
ization and  was  glad  of  it.  It  is  the  simple  story 
of  joy  on  legs. 

vii 


CONTENTS 


The  Start  and  the  Reasons 

PAOX 

Good-bye  to  Malaria.  — A  "Walk  for  Fun.  —  Amateur 
Robbers  and  the  Great  Professional.  —  Personally-Con- 
ducted Fishing.  — The  Beginnings  of  "  Woolliness."  — 
Joy  on  Legs 1 


IT 

Really  "Out  West" 

My  First  Antelope. — Playing  with  Rattlesnakes. — 
Up  the  Backbone  of  the  Continent.  —  A  Bootful  of 
Torture. —- Sung  to  Sleep  by  Coyotes.  —  "Held  Up" 
again.  — Making  up  for  Lost  Meals 17 

m 

In  and  Out  among  the  Rockies 

Trout-Fishing  in  the  South  Platte.  —  A  Wonderful 
Canal.  —  The  Little  Ranch  on  Plum  Creek.  —  Playing 
Pack- Mule.  —  Coaxing  a  Rabbit  from  his  Burrow.  — 
A  Hard  Night.  —  Blown  from  a  Bridge.  —  The  Wonder- 
land of  the  Rockies 33 

ix 


X  CONTENTS 

IV 
Mountain  Days 

PAGB 

Up  Pike's  Peak.— The  Highest  Inhabited  Building.  — 
The  Costliest  Cordwood  in  the  World.  —  The  Twm 
Gorges.  —  A  Relic  of  the  Argonauts.  —  The  Odyssey 
of  the  Rockies.  —  Twice  Scalped.  —  A  Mountain  Lion 
in  the  Stable 44 

V 

Skirting  the  Rockies 

A  Shadow  saves  my  Life.  — A  Fine  Canon.  —  A  Mid- 
night Fight  with  a  Wildcat.  —  A  Frank  Prayer.  —  Lucky 
Bassick  and  his  Claim.  —  A  Humble  Friend  in  Need. 

—  Finding  a  Comrade 61 

VI 

Over  the  Divide 

Scaling  the  Rockies. — The  Trapper  in  Buckskin. — 
Looking  down  the  Muzzle  of  a  Forty- four.  —  A  Starving 
Feast  on  Prairie-dog.  —  Chased  by  a  Cougar.  —  Shooting 
around  a  Corner 74 

vn 

The  Land  of  the  Adobe 

Among  the  Pueblos.  —  The  Hero-missionaries  and 
their  Work.  — Lost  on  the  Mesas.  —  Ancient  Santa  F6. 

—  Miles   of    Gold-thread.  —  A  Romantic    History.  — 
Indian  Letter- writers.  —  The  Village  of  Tesuque 93 


CONTENTS  XI 

vm 

The  Mineral  Belt 

PAGS 

The  Great  Turquoise  and  its  Deserted  Drifts.  —  An 
Elastic  Road.  — The  Oldest  Gold-fields.  —  Among  the 
Mines.  — The  Paradise  of  Land- Grabbers.  — My  Friend 
the  Desperado.  —  Marino  and  the  Fat  Man.  —  The 
Deadly  Crossing.  — Lost  in  the  Snow Ill 

IX 

Pulling  Through 

A  Narrow  Escape.  —  San  Antonito.  —  A  Rich  Trail.  — 
"Poisoned!"  —  My  First  Experience  with  Chile.  — A 
Lesson  in  Traveller's  Courtesy.  —  The  Pueblo  of  Isleta. 
—  Character  of  its  Citizens 132 

X 

The  Fiesta  de  los  Muertos 

A  Day  of  the  Dead  in  a  Pueblo  Town.  —  The  Appetite 
of  a  Departed  Indian.  —  The  Biscuits  of  the  Angels.  — 
An  Acrobatic  Bell.  —  A  Windfall  for  the  Padre Hi 

XI 

Across  the  Rio  Grande 

Twenty  Miles  of  Moss  Agates.  —  A  Night  with  the 
Cowboys.  —  Shooting  a  Tarantula.  —  Christmas  at  the 
Section-House.  —  A  Board-Hunt.  —  The  Wild  Dance  at 
Laguna.  —  The  City  of  the  Cliff.  —  Acoma  and  its 
People.  —  Buried  Treasures.  —  A  ^70,000  Seat 154 


mi  CONTENTS 

xn 

From  CtrsKRO  to  San  Mateo 

PAGS 

Phillips  gives  up.  —  Southwestern  Eloquence.  —  The 
Buried  City  of  San  Mateo.  —  Home-life  on  a  Hacienda. 
—  A  Mexican  "April  Fool."  —  American  Citizens  who 
Torture  Themselves  and  Crucify  Each  Other.  — A  New 
Mexico  Milking 174 

xin 

Territorial  Types 

Mexican  Superstitions. — Patapalo's  Encounter  with 
the  Original  Serpent.  —  A  Meeting  with  the  Devil. — 
A  New  Companion.  —  An  Unwilling  Suicide.  —  The 
Rock  Springs  Rancho.  —  A  Crucifix  in  Petticoats. — 
Biirrds.  —  The  Census  of  the  Saints. — The  New  Gar- 
den of  the  Gods.  —  The  "Bad  Man"  and  his  Arma- 
ment    195 

XIV 

With  the  Nomads 

Among  the  Navajos.  —  Strange  Indians.  —  Wandering 
Jewelers.  —  Barbaric  Silver  and  Costly  Blankets.  — 
Mysterious  Beads.  —  A  Navajo  Matrimonial  Agency.  — 
Over  a  Cliff 212 

XV 

A  Streak  of  Lean 

A  Broken  Arm.  —  The  Pleasures  of  Self-Surgery.— 
Fifty-two  Miles  of  Torture.  —  Winslow.  —  The  Difficul- 


CONTENTS  Xlll 

Txan 
ties  of  a  Transcontinental  Railroad.  —  A  Frank  Ad- 
yertisement.  —  The  Parson  and  the  Stolen  Cattle 225 

XVI 

Western  Arizona 

The  Devil's  Gorge.  —  Into  Snow  Again.  —  The  Great 
Pine  Forest  and  its  Game.  —  A  Lucky  Revolver-shot. 
—  The  King  of  Black-tails.  —  A  Canon  of  the  CliS- 
D wellers. — The  Greatest  Chasm  on  Earth 235 

xvn 

The  Verge  of  the  Desert 

Exploring  the  Grand  Canon. — A  Perilous  Jump. — 
The  Edge  of  the  Desert.  —  Kindly  Mrs.  Kelly.  — The 
Tortures  of  Thirst.  —  Shadow  goes  Mad 244 

XVIII 

The  Worst  of  It 

A  Fight  for  Life.  —  Shadow's  Grave.  — The  Heart  of 
the  Desert.  — The  Story  the  Skull  told  me 265 

XIX 

On  the  Home  Stretch 

A  Desert  Cut-OfE.  — The  One  Good  Chum.  — Plucky 
Munier. — Days  of  Horror.  —  Into  "God's  Country" 
at  Last 261 


A 

TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 


THE  START  AND  THE  REASONS 

Good-bye  to  Malaria.— A  Walk  for  Fun. — Amateur  Robbers 
and  the  Great  Professional.— Personally-Conducted  Fish- 
ing.—  The  Beginnings  of  *'  Woolliness."  — Joy  on  Legs. 

But  why  tramp  ?  Are  there  not  railroads  and 
Pullmans  enough,  that  you  must  walk  ?  That  is 
what  a  great  many  of  my  friends  said  when  they 
learned  of  my  determination  to  travel  from  Ohio 
to  California  on  foot;  and  very  likely  it  is  the 
question  that  will  first  come  to  your  mind  in  read- 
ing of  the  longest  walk  for  pure  pleasure  that  is 
on  record.  But  railroads  and  Pullmans  were  in- 
vented to  help  us  hurry  through  life  and  miss  most 
of  the  pleasure  of  it  —  and  most  of  the  profit,  too, 
except  of  that  jingling,  only  half-satisfying  sort 
which  can  be  footed  up  in  the  ledger.  I  was  after 
neither  time  nor  money,  but  life  —  not  life  in  the 
pathetic  meaning  of  the  poor  health-seeker,  for  I 

1 


2     A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

was  perfectly  well  and  a  trained  athlete ;  but  life 
in  the  truer,  broader,  sweeter  sense,  the  exhilarant 
joy  of  living  outside  the  sorry  fences  of  society, 
living  with  a  perfect  body  and  a  wakened  mind,  a 
life  where  brain  and  teawn  and  leg  and  lung  all 
rejoice  and  grow  alert  together.  I  am  an  Ameri- 
can and  felt  ashamed  to  know  so  little  of  my  own 
country  as  I  did,  and  as  most  Americans  do.  I  was 
young  (twenty-six)  with  educated  muscles  and 
full  experience  of  the  pleasures  of  long  .pedestrian 
tours — that  is,  such  tours  as  are  generally  deemed 
long.  Furthermore,  I  wished  to  remove  from  Ohio 
to  California.  So  here  was  a  chance  to  kill  several 
birds  with  one  stone;  to  learn  more  of  the  <JOun- 
try  and  its  people  than  railroad  travel  could  ever 
teach;  to  have  the  physical  joy  which  only  the 
confirmed  pedestrian  knows;  to  have  the  mental 
awakening  of  new  sights  and  experiences ;  and  to 
get,  in  this  enjoyable  fashion,  to  my  new  home. 

These  were  the  motives  which  led  me  to  under- 
take a  walk  of  3507  miles,  occupying  143  days. 
There  was  no  wager  direct  or  indirect ;  no  limita- 
tion to  a  specified  time,  nor  any  other  restriction 
to  make  a  slave  of  me  and  ruin  the  pleasure  of  the 
walk.  It  was  purely  "  for  fun  '^  in  a  good  sense ; 
and  the  most  productive  four  months  of -a  rather 
stirring  life.  There  was  no  desire  for  notoriety  r— 
indeed,  I  found  it  generally  more  comfortable  to 


THE  START  AND  THE  REASONS      3 

tell  no  one  on  the  way  my  object,  and  thus  to  avoid 
the  stares  and  questions  of  strangers.  The  jour- 
ney was  often  fatiguing,  but  never  dull;  full  of 
hardship  and  spiced  with  frequent  danger  in  its 
latter  half,  but  always  instructive,  keenly  interest- 
ing, and  keenly  enjoyed,  even  at  its  hardest,  and 
it  had  some  very  hard  sides.  The  first  half  need 
be  but  briefly  outlined,  for  it  was  through  a  well- 
settled  country  with  little  adventure,  and  though 
interesting  to  me,  was  no  more  noteworthy  than 
many  other  pedestrian  trips  in  the  East.  But 
from  Colorado  westward  it  was  an  exciting  series 
of  adventures  —  far  more  of  an  experience  than  I 
had  at  all  expected.  If  the  narrative  tells  only  of 
my  own  doings  and  impressions,  you  must  remem- 
ber that  I  tramped  alone,  so  there  is  no  one  else 
to  share  the  story  —  except  the  dog  whose  faith- 
ful chumship  for  1500  adventurous  miles,  and 
whose  awful  death  on  the  desert  are  still  its  most 
vivid  memories.  The  tramp  cost  many  times  the 
amount  of  a  first-class  passage  by  rail ;  yet  in  view 
of  the  time  covered  by  the  expedition,  the  exuber- 
ant physical  enjoyment,  the  rich  store  of  informa- 
tion, the  whole  museum  of  curios  and  mementos, 
and  above  all  the  experience,  it  was  very  cheap.  I 
have  it  to  thank  that  later,  when  overwork  had 
brought  paralysis  upon  me,  and  lost  me  the  use  of 
my  left  arm,  I  came  back  to  the  wilderness  to  study 


4     A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

and  live  among  the  wonderful  races  and  scenes  I 
had  found  in  walking  across  the  continent,  and  there 
found,  at  last,  perfect  strength  again. 

I  had  tested  Ohio  for  two  years,  with  results 
more  flattering  to  the  climate  than  to  me.  The 
"ancient  metropolis,"  former  capital  of  the  State 
—  where  the  conductor  of  the  old  Marietta  and 
Cincinnati  Kailroad  used  to  bawl  in  at  the  car  door 
"  Chillicothe  !  Fifteen  minutes  for  quinine  !  "  — had 
approved  itself  as  lovable  in  all  other  ways  as  it  was 
meteorologically  accursed.  Its  people  are  delight- 
ful, but  its  oldest  inhabitant  —  and  only  bustling 
one — Dad  Fevernager,  quite  the  reverse.  He  never 
"  shook "  with  me  but  once ;  but  that  was  enough. 
And  so  it  was  that  I  moved. 

On  the  11th  of  September,  1884, 1  left  Chillicothe 
by  rail  for  Cincinnati,  —  that  ninety  miles  being 
already  an  old  story,  —  and  from  the  latter  city 
began  next  day  my  long  walk.  I  wore  a  close,  but 
not  tight,  knickerbocker  suit,  —  one  who  has  not 
learned  the  science  of  walking  doesn't  dream  what 
an  aggregate  hampering  there  is  in  that  two  feet  of 
flapping  trousers  below  the  knee,  —  with  flannel 
shirt,  and  low,  light  Curtis  &  Wheeler  shoes.  Peo- 
ple who  do  not  walk  all  the  time  should  wear  thick- 
soled,  heavy  shoes  for  a  tramp;  but  if  one  is  to 
make  a  business  of  walking,  the  best  way  is  to  be 
aa  lightly  shod  as  possible,  and  let  the  soles  and 


THE  STABT  AND  THE  REASONS  6 

ankles  toughen  and  strengthen  without  "  crutches." 
Since  learning  to  campaign  in  the  Apache  moccasin, 
I  have  always  preferred  a  few  days  of  sore  feet  and 
subsequent  light-footedness  to  perpetual  dragging 
of  heavy  shoes.  My  rifle  went  on  by  express  to 
Wa  Keeny,  Kansas,  where  I  was  to  shoulder  it; 
and  my  small  valise  and  light,  but  capacious  duck 
knapsack  made  their  daily  marches  on  the  broader 
shoulders  of  the  express  companies.  The  first  rule 
of  walking  for  pleasure  is  to  walk  light,  and  for 
that  reason  I  had  long  ago  discarded  the  bicycle 
for  long  trips.  It  is  very  pleasant  to  ride,  but 
when  you  have  to  carry  your  "  horse,"  which  would 
be  about  half  the  time  on  such  a  journey,  it  is  as 
bad  as  a  ball  and  chain.  Even  a  real  horse  would 
have  made  impossible  many  of  my  most  interesting 
experiences,  and  I  had  cause  to  be  thankful  a  thou- 
sand times  that  I  was  free  from  all  such  encum- 
brances. In  my  pockets  were  writing-material, 
fishing-tackle,  matches,  and  tobacco,  and  a  small 
revolver,  which  was  discarded  for  a  forty-four-calibre 
later  on.  A  strong  hunting-knife,  the  most  useful  of 
all  tools,  hung  at  my  belt,  and  in  a  money-belt  next 
my  skin  was  buttoned  ^300  in  ^2.50  gold  pieces, 
which  would  not  suffer  from  perspiration  as  paper 
money  would,  and  was  of  small  denomination,  as 
was  necessary  in  a  trip  where  the  changing  of  a  $20 
piece  would  have  cost  my  life  in  a  hundred  places. 


6     A  TEAMP  ACEOSS  THE  CONTINENT 

It  was  nine  o'clock  Friday  morning,  September 
12,  when  I  turned  my  back  on  Cincinnati  and 
trudged  down  the  dusty  "  river  road  "  toward  Law- 
renceburg.  Along  the  valley  of  the  broad  Ohio 
the  way  was  pleasant,  and  yet  sad.  The  round 
hills,  the  wide  "bottoms"  rustling  with  yellow 
corn,  the  shimmering,  peaceful  river,  —  they  were 
good  to  the  eye.  But  everywhere  among  them 
were  the  broad,  half-healed  scars  of  a  deadly  wound 
—  the  cicatrices  of  the  stupendous  flood  of  Febru- 
ary, 1884.  Through  all  these  towns  and  hamlets 
the  treacherous  river  —  between  whose  low-water 
and  high-water  marks  is  the  appalling  gulf  of  sev- 
enty feet  —  had  written  its  grim  autograph.  Cin- 
cinnati was  too  big  to  be  ruined,  though  the  muddy 
sea  covered  many  square  miles  of  its  area  and  stood 
a  story  deep  in  thousands  of  its  buildings.  But 
the  little  towns  for  three  hundred  miles  have  never 
recovered  from  that  unprecedented  avalanche  of 
waters.  Many  of  them  will  never  fully  recover, 
for  they  live  in  yearly  dread  of  a  new  visitation. 

It  might  be  interesting  to  detail  my  experiences 
in  trudging  across  the  corner  of  Ohio,  the  whole 
length  of  Indiana  and  Illinois ;  but  it  would  make 
this  story  too  long,  and  it  were  better  that  the 
space  be  saved  for  the  greater  interest  and  excite- 
ment of  the  tramp  in  the  farther  West.  The  most 
prominent  memory  of  the  first  week  is — sore  feet! 


THE  START  AND  THE  REASONS  7 

I  had  been  walking  a  good  deal  for  years  before 
starting  on  the  tramp ;  but  the  ground  was  burned 
up  with  drought,  and  the  weather  was  still  very- 
hot;  and  walking  all  day,  day  after  day,  on  that 
baking  surface  soon  made  my  feet  sore  as  one  huge 
boil.  But  the  experienced  walker  does  not  nurse 
such  blisters.  If  you  sit  down  and  cure  them,  they 
come  back  as  soon  as  you  resume  the  march.  If 
you  will  shut  your  teeth  and  trudge  on,  and  bear 
the  extreme  pain  for  a  few  days,  the  rebellious 
soles  gradually  toughen  into  self-cure,  and  the  cure 
is  permanent  throughout  the  journey.  So  I  limped 
ahead,  with  very  sorry  grimaces  and  a  sorrier  gait, 
but  without  giving  up,  and  by  the  time  I  stood  in 
Missouri  my  feet  were  as  happy  as  all  the  rest  of 
my  body.  A  sprain  of  my  ankle  just  at  starting 
cured  itself  in  the  same  way. 

The  weather  was  hardly  the  best  for  walking. 
Across  the  first  two  States  it  was  oppressively  hot, 
and  then  I  had  several  days  of  trudging  in  a  pour- 
ing rain.  However,  it  did  not  drench  the  spirits 
within,  and  it  was  welcome  as  an  experience. 

Crossing  the  noble  bridge  which  wades,  with 
giant  legs  of  granite,  across  the  Father  of  Waters 
at  St.  Louis,  I  followed  the  general  course  of  the 
Missouri  Pacific  Kailroad  across  Missouri,  having 
some  funny  experiences  with  back-country  people ; 
and  at  last  a  bit  of  adventure  a  little  west  of  War- 


8     A  TEAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

rensburg.  From  over  the  hedge  of  a  cosy  little 
farmhouse  a  huge  and  savage  dog  leaped  in  pursuit 
of  me.  He  did  not  come  to  bark, — that  was  plain 
from  the  first, — but  on  business.  He  evidently 
liked  strangers — and  liked  them  raw.  He  did  not 
pause  to  threaten  or  reconnoitre,  but  made  a  bee- 
line  for  me;  and  when  close,  made  a  savage  leap 
straight  at  my  throat.  My  hunting-knife  chanced 
to  be  at  my  hand,  and  as  he  sprang  I  threw  up  a 
light  switch  in  my  left  hand.  He  caught  it  in  his 
big  jaws ;  and  in  the  same  instant,  with  the  instinct 
of  a  boxer,  I  gave  a  desperate  "upper  cut"  with  my 
hunting-knife.  The  strong,  double-edged,  eight-inch 
blade  caught  him  squarely  under  the  throat,  and  the 
point  came  out  of  his  forehead,  so  fierce  had  been 
the  blow.  He  never  made  a  sound  except  a  dying 
gurgle ;  and  tugging  out  the  bedded  blade  by  a 
violent  effort  I  hastened  to  depart,  leaving  him 
stretched  in  the  road. 

A  couple  of  days  later  two  cheap  tramps  of  the 
ordinary  sort  "held  me  up'*  during  one  of  my 
returns  to  the  railroad.  They  were  burly,  greasy 
fellows,  the  first  glance  at  whom  assured  me  that 
they  were  cowards,  and  not  worth  serious  treat- 
ment. They  were  both  so  much  larger  than  I  that 
they  did  not  deem  it  worth  while  to  take  even  a 
club  to  me,  and  one  of  them  grabbed  my  coat  with 
sublime  confidence.     My  weapons  were  handy,  but 


THE  START  AND  THE  REASONS  9 

unneeded.  The  largest  fellow  stood  just  in  front 
of  the  rail,  so  loose,  so  unbalanced,  that  it  would 
have  been  a  sinful  waste  of  opportunity  not  to 
tumble  him.  Just  as  he  reached  his  left  hand  for 
my  watch,  biff!  biff!  with  left  and  right — his  heels 
caught  on  the  rail  and  down  he  went  as  only  a  big 
and  clumsy  animal  can  fall.  Then  I  whipped  out 
the  knife  and  started  for  the  amateur  robbers, 
with  a  murderous  face,  but  chuckling  inwardly — a 
chuckle  which  broke  into  open  laughter  as  they 
fled  incontinently  down  the  track,  their  tatters 
streaming  behind  upon  the  wind.  It  was  cheap 
fun  and  no  danger,  for  I  was  armed  and  they  were 
not;  and  the  laugh  lasts  whenever  I  recall  their 
comical  cowardice. 

At  Independence,  Missouri,  I  heard  a  good  deal 
of  the  notorious  train  robbers  and  murderers,  the 
James  "boys,"  and  had  a  long  talk  with  Frank 
James,  who  was  the  brains  of  the  gang,  as  his 
unlamented  brother  Jesse  was  its  authority.  He 
looked  very  little  like  the  typical  desperado  —  a 
tallish,  slender,  angular,  thin-chested,  round-shoul- 
dered, dull-eyed  fellow,  of  cunning  but  not  repulsive 
face,  and  an  interesting  talker.  The  home  nest  of 
the  outlaws  was  about  Independence,  and  many  of 
the  citizens  who  were  not  their  sympathizers  had 
participated  in  some  of  the  exciting  attempts  to 
capture  the  criminals.    Frank  was  as  free  as  you 


10    A  TRAMV  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

or  I,  a  prominent  figure  at  the  country  fairs,  and  a 
rather  influential  personage,  —  all  of  which  struck 
me  as  a  trifle  odd.  I  found  him  in  the  post-office, 
reading  his  big  bundle  of  mail  —  most  of  which,  as 
the  chirography  betrayed,  was  from  the  "softer" 
sex.  His  hands  were  long,  taper,  and  flexible ;  his 
feet  particularly  "  well-bred."  He  talked  unreserv- 
edly of  his  trials,  and  was  very  sarcastic  about  the 
then  fashionable  habit  of  attributing  to  his  "  gang  " 
most  of  the  crimes  in  the  United  States.  I  also 
ran  across  several  of  the  self-appointed  heroes  who 
had  sought  and  conscientiously  failed  to  catch  the 
miscreants  after  their  various  robberies  and  mur- 
ders, and  heard  of  their  blood-curdling  adventures. 
For  several  days  after  leaving  Kansas  City 
where  I  made  a  very  brief  stay,  —  since  cities  are 
plenty  enough,  and  I  was  walking  to  see  some- 
thing less  hackneyed  and  more  interesting,  —  my 
course  lay  along  the  pretty  valley  of  the  Kansas 
River,  properly  named  the  Kaweily,  but  in  common 
parlance  the  Kaw;  and  very  pleasant  days  they 
were.  My  feet  were  all  right  now,  and  there  was 
no  drawback  to  absolute  enjoyment — except  the 
mosquitos,  which  hung  about  me  in  clouds,  biting 
even  through  my  thick,  long  stockings,  whose  red 
was  almost  lost  under  their  swarm.  But  that  was 
for  one  day  only.  At  Lawrence,  Kansas,  I  bought  a 
piece  of  netting,  sewed  it  into  a  long  cylinder  open 


THE  START  AND  THE  REASONS     11 

at  the  bottom,  and  gathered  at  the  top  so  that  it 
would  just  go  over  the  crown  of  my  broad  hat,  from 
whose  brim  it  fell  to  my  feet.  After  that  the 
bloodthirsty  little  pests  got  no  more  satisfaction 
from  my  veins. 

At  Lawrence,  too,  I  visited  the  Indian  school,  then 
just  being  completed,  where  some  of  my  swarthy 
young  friends  of  later  years  are  now  being  edu- 
cated, and  also  witnessed  some  fishing  which  seemed 
very  odd.  The  Kaw  abounds  in  huge  cat-fish, 
ranging  as  high  sometimes  as  one  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds,  and  they  are  fond  of  lying  in  the  wild  waters 
below  the  sheeting  of  the  Lawrence  dam.  There  are 
three  or  four  old  boatmen  who  go  fishing  for  them 
under  water,  and  with  curious  tackle  —  only  a  big, 
sharp,  steel  hook  securely  strapped  to  the  right 
arm.  Diving  into  the  current,  they  grope  along  the 
bottom  until  they  touch  the  eel-like  hide  of  one  of 
these  "  hornpouts,"  and  then  jab  the  hook  into  the 
fish  wherever  they  can,  like  a  gaff.  There  is  then 
a  fearful  struggle,  for  a  large  fish  has  great  strength 
when  in  his  native  element ;  and  shortly  before  my 
visit  one  of  the  most  expert  of  these  diver-fisher- 
men hooked  a  "cat"  too  big  for  him,  and  was 
dragged  down  and  drowned  before  he  could  unstrap 
the  hook  from  his  arm  and  thus  escape. 

I  made  quick  work  of  "stepping  off"  Kansas; 
and,  after  the  Kaw  Valley  had  fallen  behind  me,  with 


12    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

daily  growing  interest.  A  couple  of  hundred  miles 
from  Kansas  City  it  began  to  feel  as  if  I  were  get- 
ting ^^  really  out  West."  In  one  day  I  stepped 
upon  a  young  rattlesnake  —  which,  was  luckily  too 
cold  and  sluggish  to  strike  me  before  I  could  jump 
off  —  and  saw  my  first  "  dog  town,"  with  its  chat- 
tering rodents  and  stolid  owls,  my  first  sage-brush 
and  cactus  and  cattle  rancho.  And  the  Plains  im- 
pressed me  greatly.  They  seemed  lonelier  and 
more  hopeless  than  mid-ocean.  Such  an  infinity  of 
nothing  —  such  a  weight  of  silence  !  The  outlook 
was  endless ;  it  seemed  as  if  one  could  fairly  see 
the  day  after  to-morrow  crawling  up  that  infinite 
horizon ! 

The  15,000-acre  ranch  seemed  very  big  to  me 
then,  —  it  was  before  the  farther  West  had  accus- 
tomed me  to  100,000  acres  and  upwards,  —  and  was 
very  interesting  with  its  8000  sheep,  500  high-bred 
cattle,  a  score  of  cowboys,  and  other  things  in  pro- 
portion. The  night  I  was  there  the  coyotes  jumped 
a  high  fence  and  made  sad  havoc  among  the  valu- 
able sheep  in  the  corral ;  and  this  seemed  still  more 
as  if  I  were  coming  to  the  borders  of  an  interesting 
land. 

At  Ellsworth,  which  was  then  a  rather  "  hard  " 
village,  I  first  found  the  cowboy  dandy  in  all  his 
glory  of  ^20  sombrero,  his  fringed  and  beaded  dog- 
skin coat  and  chajpjsarejos  (seatless  overalls  to  pro- 


THE  START  AND  THE  REASONS  13 

tect  the  legs  from  thorns),  his  costly  boots  with 
ridiculous  French  heels,  his  silver-inlaid  spurs 
jingling  with  silver  bells,  and  the  pair  of  pearl- 
mounted  six-shooters  at  his  belt.  I  was  shy  of 
him  at  first,  but  have  since  found  him  a  very  good 
fellow  in  his  rough  way,  and  have  experienced  at 
his  hands  in  the  Southwest  countless  pleasures  and 
no  troubles. 

From  Ellsworth  I  made  a  strong  spurt,  just  to 
see  what  I  could  do  in  twenty-four  hours.  The 
conditions  were  very  favorable  —  the  hard,  smooth 
turf  roads  are  admirable  to  walk  upon,  and  I  was 
in  perfect  trim  and  unincumbered.  In  twenty-four 
hours  I  had  trotted  to  Ellis,  an  even  seventy-nine 
miles.  The  distance  was  made  in  twenty-one 
hours,  and  the  record  would  have  been  better  had 
I  not  fallen  asleep  when  I  sat  down  to  rest,  and 
thus  lost  three  hours.  Walking  and  I  were  on 
good  terms  now,  and  every  day  scored  from  thirty 
to  forty  miles;  but  that  spurt  from  Ellsworth  to 
Ellis  was  the  longest  day's  walk  I  ever  made. 

At  Hays  City,  a  cowboy  who  had  gambled  away 
his  money,  pistols,  and  pony  concluded  to  walk 
with  me  to  Wallace,  where  he  had  a  brother  that 
he  "  reckoned  would  stake  him."  He  had  lost  his 
money  at  a  pleasant  bull-fight  at  Caldwell  the  pre- 
ceding Sunday,  and  was  evidently  used  to  very 
tough    companionship;    but  I  found    him    good- 


14    A  TBAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

hearted,  lenient  toward  my  ignorance  in  matters 
whereof  he  was  expert,  and,  altogether,  a  very- 
spicy  and  entertaining  comrade  for  the  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-one  miles  in  which  he  shared  my 
"bed  and  board."  Walking  was  agony  to  him  in 
those  tight,  tall-heeled  boots,  but  he  was  game  to 
the  ends  of  his  toes,  and  hobbled  on  so  pluckily 
that  I  gave  up  my  haste  and  adopted  a  gait  which 
was  easier  for  him.  At  Wa  Keeny  I  took  up  my 
rifle  and  bought  a  blanket,  as  the  nights  were  get- 
ting cold.  It  was  a  big  one  while  it  had  to  be  car- 
ried, but  when  cowboy  Bill  Henke  and  I  both  had 
to  curl  up  in  it  at  night  it  was  very  small,  and  I 
could  get  neither  enough  of  it  to  keep  out  the 
winds  of  the  plains  nor  to  escape  from  my  com- 
panion, who  nearly  snored  my  head  off  nightly. 
But  we  had  a  very  good  time  by  day,  popping 
prairie-dogs  and  snakes  and  herons,  watching  the 
big  balls  of  the  curious  "  tumble-weed  "  which  dries 
up  in  the  fall,  cracks  from  its  stem,  and  at  the  in- 
vitation of  the  first  vagrant  wind  goes  tumbling 
somersaults  off  over  the  plains  to  visit  its  relatives 
maybe  a  hundred  miles  away  —  racing  with  that 
most  agile  of  snakes,  the  "  blue-racer,"  or  marvel- 
ling at  the  speed  with  which  his  horny-nosed 
cousin,  the  "auger-snake,"  will  go  down  through 
the  hard  dry  turf,  getting  himself  out  of  sight  in  a 
very  few  moments. 


THE  START  AND  THE  EEASONS  15 

At  Wallace  I  left  Henke  to  his  brother  and 
pushed  on  alone  over  the  bare,  dry,  endless,  water- 
less plains,  sometimes  reaching  a  wee  and  shabby 
slab  town,  but  more  often  sleeping  out  on  the 
crisp,  brown  grass.  It  was  getting  up  in  the 
world,  too.  In  the  less  than  500  miles  from  Kan- 
sas City  I  had  been  steadily  climbing  an  inclined 
plane,  and  was  now  nearly  4000  feet  above  the  sea. 
Indeed,  after  passing  the  Colorado  line,  there  were 
very  few  days  in  the  next  1200  miles  when  I  was 
at  an  altitude  much  less  than  5000  feet. 

A  few  years  before,  the  vast  plains  of  the  South- 
west had  been  black  with  countless  herds  of  buffalo ; 
but  the  pot-hunter,  the  hide-hunter,  and,  worst  of 
all,  the  soulless  fellow  who  killed  for  the  mere  sav- 
agery of  killing,  had  already  exterminated  this 
lordly  game.  The  last  of  the  buffaloes  was  killed 
at  Cheyenne  Wells  just  as  I  passed  —  a  grizzled 
old  bull,  who  was  the  sole  survivor  of  his  nomad 
race.  But  the  turf  was  cut  everywhere  still  with 
their  deep,  narrow  trails ;  and  every  now  and  then 
I  came  to  the  grass-grown  "wallows,''  where  the 
great  bovine  hunchbacks  had  scooped  out  "  bowls  " 
in  the  turf  by  revolving  upon  their  backs,  to  be  rid 
of  the  tormenting  swarms  of  gnats. 

I  had  grown  robust  as  a  young  bison  myself. 
"  Out-of-doors "  is  a  glorious  tonic,  and  when  I 
rose  each  morning  from  the  brown  lap  of  Mother 


16    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

Earth,  I  seemed  to  have  realized  the  fable  of  An- 
taeus. My  lungs  were  growing  even  larger,  my 
eyes  were  good  for  twice  their  usual  range,  and 
every  sinew  stood  out  on  my  skin  like  a  little 
strand  of  cord.  As  for  my  feet,  they  were  much 
in  the  condition  of  those  of  the  barefoot  Georgia 
girl  of  whom  Porte  Crayon  tells  as  standing  by  the 
hearth.  "Sal!"  cried  her  mother,  "the's  a  live 
coal  under  yo'  foot!"  Sal  did  not  budge,  but 
looked  up  stupidly,  and  drawled,  "Which  foot, 
mam?" 


n 

EEALLY  •♦OUT  WEST" 

My  First  Antelope. — Playing  with  Rattlesnakes. — Up  the 
Backbone  of  the  Continent.  —  A  Bootf ul  of  Torture.  — 
Sung  to  Sleep  by  Coyotes.  —  "Held  Up"  again. — 
Making  up  for  Lost  Meals. 

Trudging  up  the  long,  smooth  acclivity,  pausing 
now  and  then  for  a  shot  at  the  flocks  of  sandhill 
cranes  that  purred  far  overhead,  I  stepped  across 
the  imaginary  line  into  Colorado  —  my  fifth  State 
—  and  in  the  cool,  enchanted  dusk  of  an  October 
evening  swung  into  First  View.  The  "town"  con- 
sisted of  a  section  house,  where  a  supper  of  rancid 
bacon,  half-raw  potatoes,  leaden  bread  flounced  with 
sorghum,  and  coffee  which  looked  exactly  like  some 
alkaline  pools  I  wot  of  and  tasted  about  as  cheer- 
ful, encouraged  my  lonely  belt  to  reassert  itself. 
There  was  no  temptation  to  sleep  in  the  infested 
house,  and  after  supper  I  found  a  luxurious  little 
gully  in  the  grassy  plain,  gathered  a  little  resin- 
weed  for  a  pillow,  spread  my  sleeping-bag  on  the 

17 


18    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

soft  sand,  and  turned  in.  Just  as  I  was  dozing  off 
a  tiny  patter  roused  me,  and,  opening  my  eyes,  I 
saw  the  sharp,  inquisitive  face  of  a  coyote  looking 
down  at  me  from  the  bank  not  five  feet  above.  I 
slid  my  hand  softly  to  mv  forty-four,  but  he  was 
off  like  a  shot,  carrying  with  him  the  pretty  pelt 
for  which  I  was  so  anxious. 

Next  morning,  before  the  sun  had  climbed  above 
the  bare,  brown  divides  of  Kansas,  I  rolled  out  of 
"  bed,"  danced  about  a  few  moments  in  the  cold 
morning  air  to  unlimber  my  joints,  and  then 
hastened  to  introduce  my  chattering  teeth  to  a 
breakfast  which  would  have  swamped  any  less 
burglar-proof  stomach.  Its  only  merit  was  that  it 
was  warming.  As  the  day  burst  into  bloom,  the 
section  people  pointed  out  the  faint  patch  of  white 
upon  the  far-off  western  sky  from  which  First 
View  takes  its  name — the  noble  head  of  Pike's 
Peak,  which  half  a  century  ago  was  one  of  the  sad- 
dest and  most  romantic  goals  toward  which  man 
ever  struggled.  It  is  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  from  First  View. 

Then,  filling  the  long  magazine  of  my  Winches- 
ter and  stowing  a  quart  bottle  of  water  in  one  of 
the  capacious  pockets  of  my  coat,  I  struck  out  at  a 
rapid  gait  northwestwardly,  desiring  to  hunt  well 
out  into  the  plains  and  still  get  back  to  Kit  Carson, 
fifteen  miles  ahead,  before  night.     It  is  no  easy 


BBALLY    "OUT   WEST"  19 

walking  upon  the  plains  at  this  season  of  the  year. 
The  short,  brown  buffalo  grass  soon  polishes  one^s 
soles  till  they  shine  like  glass,  and  directly  the 
feet  slip,  so  that  it  is  rather  hard  to  tell  whether 
the  step  carries  one  farther  forward  or  the  slide 
farther  back. 

Ten  slippery  miles  must  have  been  traversed  in 
this  dubious  and  aggravating  locomotion  before  my 
eyes  rested  on  the  object  of  their  search.  Three 
or  four  miles  off,  in  a  low  divide,  were  four  tiny 
gray  dots.  They  had  no  apparent  shape,  nor  did 
they  seem  to  move ;  but  the  hunter's  eye  —  even 
when  it  has  been  abused  by  years  in  chasing  the 
alphabet  across  a  white  page  —  is  not  easily  fooled. 
They  were  antelope  —  and  the  next  thing  was  to 
get  them. 

The  theories  of  antelope-hunting  were  suffi- 
ciently familiar  to  me  by  reading,  but  when  put 
into  practice  they  did  not  fully  bear  out  the  books. 
A  big  red  bandanna,  tied  to  the  end  of  my  bamboo 
staff,  was  soon  flapping  to  the  wind,  and  I  lay  fully 
an  hour  behind  a  handy  rosette  of  the  Spanish 
dagger,  innocently  expecting  my  game  to  come 
straight  up  to  me  —  as  they  should  have  done 
according  to  all  precedent  in  the  stories.  Their 
attention  soon  grasped  my  signal,  and  they  did 
sidle  toward  me  by  degrees,  demurely  nibbling  the 
dry  grass  as  they  advanced.     But  they  had  prob- 


20    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

ably  seen  auction  flags  before,  and  after  perhaps  a 
mile  of  their  herbivorous  advance  they  stopped, 
and  even  began  grazing  away  from  me.  It  was 
plain  that  any  further  advances  toward  an  ac- 
quaintance must  come  from  me. 

Leaving  the  banner  snapping  in  the  wind,  I 
crawled  backward  on  my  stomach  some  hundred 
yards  to  the  foot  of  my  low  ridge,  and  then,  behind 
its  shelter,  started  on  a  dog-trot  up  the  ravine.  For 
half  a  mile  or  so  this  shelter  lasted,  and  thence  I 
had  to  crawl  flat  on  my  face  from  sage-brush  to  cac- 
tus and  from  cactus  to  sage-brush,  for  fully  a  mile, 
dragging  the  rifle  along  the  ground,  and  frequently 
stabbed  by  inhospitable  cactus  needles.  At  last, 
only  three  hundred  yards  away,  I  pushed  the  Win- 
chester over  a  little  tuft  of  blue-stem ;  but  before 
my  eye  could  run  along  the  sight,  the  buck  gave  a 
quick  stamp,  and  off  went  the  four  like  the  wind. 
It  was  a  very  sore  hunter  that  clambered  stifiiy  to 
his  feet  and  shook  an  impotent  fist  at  those  vanish- 
ing specks,  already  half  a  mile  away,  and  limped 
back  to  where  the  flag  and  coat  were  lying. 

But  ill-luck  can  never  outweary  perseverance; 
and  a  couple  of  hours  later  came  my  revenge.  Just 
as  my  head  came  level  with  the  top  of  an  unusually 
high  swell  a  sight  caught  my  eye  which  made  me 
drop  as  if  shot.  There  in  the  hollow,  not  over  two 
hundred  and  fifty  yards  away,  were  three  antelope 


KEALLY   "OUT  WEST"  21 

grazing  from  me — an  old  buck  with  two-inch  prongs 
on  his  antlers,  a  young  buck,  and  a  sleek  doe.  By 
good  luck  they  did  not  suspect  my  presence,  and  it 
must  have  been  minutes  that  I  watched  the  pretty 
creatures  through  a  tuft  of  grass  before  I  pulled  the 
trigger.  As  the  smoke  blew  back  past  me  I  saw 
the  old  buck  spring  high  in  the  air,  run  a  few  rods, 
and  pitch  forward  upon  the  earth.  His  companions 
stood  bewildered  for  a  second,  unknowing  which 
way  to  run,  and  that  hesitation  was  fatal  to  the 
young  buck.  He  started  north,  but  before  he  had 
run  a  hundred  feet  another  bullet  broke  his  spine. 
Before  another  cartridge  could  jump  from  magazine 
to  barrel  the  doe  was  out  of  sight. 

Beautiful  animals  are  these  shy  rovers  of  the 
plains,  graceful  and  slender  as  a  greyhound,  and 
fleeter  of  foot.  I  can  think  of  nothing  else  so  agile. 
They  seem,  when  scared,  not  to  run,  but  rather  to 
fly  upon  the  wind  like  exaggerated  thistle-downs. 
They  stand  about  three  feet  high,  and  weigh  from 
forty  to  sixty  pounds,  but  the  smallest  seemed  to 
me  much  nearer  six  tons  by  the  time  I  had  "  packed  " 
him  twenty  miles.  It  took  an  hour's  work,  and  the 
scouring  of  several  acres  to  get  together  enough 
sage-brush,  blue-stem  and  the  bulbous  roots  of  the 
soapweed  to  build  a  fire  which  would  roast  a  few 
pounds  of  steaks,  and  despite  the  bitter  ashes  with 
which  it  was  covered,  meat  never  tasted  better. 


22    A  TRAMF  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

The  later  afternoon  brought  another  experience 
—  different,  but  no  less  exciting.  A  lucky  shot 
brought  down  a  large  hawk  at  very  long  range, 
and  I  went  over  to  get  him.  Coming  back  through 
a  patch  of  thick,  tall,  gumbo  grass  to  where  my 
antelope  and  blanket  lay,  I  was  wading  carelessly 
along  when  a  sharp  sk-r-r-r !  under  my  very  feet, 
sent  me  about  a  yard  into  the  air.  There  were  my 
tracks  in  the  broken  stems  on  each  side  of  a  big 
rattler.  I  had  stepped  right  across  him  !  Now 
he  had  thrown  himself  into  a  coil  and  was  in 
unmistakably  bad  humor,  with  angry  head  and  the 
dry  whir  of  his  tail,  which  moved  so  fast  as  to 
look  like  a  yellow  sheet.  From  boyhood  I  have 
had  a  curious  affection  for  snakes  —  an  attraction 
which  invariably  prompts  me  to  play  with  them 
awhile  before  killing  them  when  the  one-sided  romp 
is  over.  Even  the  scar  of  a  rattlesnake  bite  on 
my  forefinger,  and  the  memory  of  its  torture,  have 
not  taught  me  better. 

Now  I  poked  out  the  muzzle  of  my  rifle  to  his 
angry  snakeship,  and  no  eye  could  follow  the  swift 
flash  in  which  he  smote  it,  his  fangs  striking  the 
barrel  with  a  little  tick,  as  though  a  needle  had 
been  stabbed  at  a  pane  of  glass.  I  know  of  noth- 
ing more  dreamily  delicious  than  to  tease  a  rattler 
with  some  stick  or  other  object  just  long  enough 
to  keep  those  grim  fangs  from  one's  own  flesh.     I 


BEALLY   "OUT  WEST**  23 

have  stood  for  hours  thus,  thoughtless  of  discom- 
fort, carried  away  by  the  indescribable  charm  of 
that  grisly  presence.  Perhaps  the  consciousness  of 
playing  with  death  and  as  his  master  contributes 
something  of  that  charm.  Be  that  as  it  may,  no 
one  who  has  ever  played  with  a  rattlesnake  can 
fully  disbelieve  the  superstition  that  it  fascinates 
its  prey.  I  have  felt  it  often  —  a  sweet  dreami- 
ness which  has  tempted  me  to  drop  the  stick  and 
reach  out  my  arms  to  that  beautiful  death.  Un- 
luckily for  them,  the  field  mouse  and  the  rabbit 
have  not  a  mulish  man's  will. 

Talk  of  grace  in  the  cat,  the  deer,  and  the  swan, 
why,  they  are  lubbers  all  beside  that  wondrous 
liquid  form.  Two-thirds  of  its  length  is  coiled  in 
a  triple  circle,  the  beaded  tail  forward,  and  up  on 
the  other  circumference,  while  opposite  and  a 
trifle  "eccentric"  (as  a  machinist  would  say), 
towers  a  something  which  no  man  can  describe. 
Afterward  you  may  see  that  it  was  only  a  couple 
of  feet  of  body,  with  an  ugly  little  delta  of 
a  head;  but  in  life  it  appears  a  distinct  and 
superior  creature.  No  other  creature  in  the  world, 
save  it  wear  feathers,  is  capable  of  such  absolutely 
unhampered  motion.  It  swings,  sweeps,  waves 
from  side  to  side,  backward  and  forward,  in  liquid 
sinuousness  that  is  so  beautiful  as  to  seem  unreal. 
The  tiny  bead  eyes,  which  never  wink,  glitter  like 


24         A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

living  diamonds ;  the  strange,  pink  mouth,  open 
wide  and  flat  as  a  palm,  twinkles  its  flexile  thread 
of  a  tongue  ;  and  through  all  burrs  the  weird,  dry 
kr-r-r-r !  of  that  mysterious  tail. 

When  our  play  was  over,  and  it  was  time  to 
hasten  toward  Kit  Carson,  I  pinned  the  neck  of 
the  snake  to  the  ground  with  the  broad  muzzle  of 
the  rifle,  and  reached  around  for  my  hunting-knife 
to  chop  off  that  unsafe  head.  Just  as  I  was  stoop- 
ing thus  above  him  he  writhed  loose,  and  quicker 
than  thought  made  a  lunge  at  my  face.  That 
hideous  open  mouth,  which  in  that  instant  seemed 
larger  than  my  hand,  came  within  three  or  four 
inches  of  my  nose  ;  but  luckily  he  struck  short  — 
for  my  wild  jump  backward  was  not  a  tithe  swift 
enough  to  have  escaped.  But  I  must  have  made  a 
considerable  dent  in  the  atmosphere.  At  last  I 
got  him  pinned  down  again  and  finished  him.  Did 
you  ever  examine  the  wonderful  adaptation  of  a 
rattler's  head  for  its  purposes  of  death  ?  The 
teeth  are  like  those  of  ordinary  snakes,  so  tiny  as 
to  be  hardly  visible,  and  are  only  to  assist  in 
swallowing,  for  no  snake  chews.  At  the  very  outer 
rim  of  the  upper  jaw  and  a  little  back  from  the 
front  are  the  fangs — two  tiny  points,  fine  as  a 
cambric  needle  and  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch  in 
visible  length.  They  are  imbedded  in  a  strong, 
white,  elastic  muscle,  and  when  tho  mouth  is  closed 


REALLY   "OUT  WEST"  25 

they  lie  flat  along  its  roof,  pointing  backward. 
Opening  the  mouth  throws  them  forward,  rigid 
and  ready  for  action.  They  still  "rake"  back- 
ward, and  therefore  strike  far  more  effectively. 
At  the  very  back  of  the  head,  on  each  side  of  the 
neck,  are  the  little  bags  which  hold  that  strange, 
colorless,  tasteless  essence  of  death,  and  a  very 
tiny  duct  leads  from  each  to  the  base  of  its  cor- 
responding fang,  which  is  hollow  its  whole  length. 
The  action  of  striking  squeezes  the  bags,  and  a 
few  drops  of  poison  spurt  in  an  infinitesimal 
stream,  but  with  great  force,  through  the  duct  and 
the  hollow  needles.  I  have  been  hit  three  feet 
away  by  the  fluid,  when  a  snake  which  shared  my 
room  for  a  year  struck  at  me  from  the  other  side 
of  a  wire  screen.  The  poison-bags  give  the  head 
of  a  venomous  snake  that  breadth  at  the  back 
which  make  it  a  sort  of  triangle ;  and  if  you  see 
any  serpent  without  that,  you  may  be  sure  he  is 
not  dangerous.  The  head  of  a  harmless  snake 
looks  but  little  wider  than  his  neck. 

An  hour  later  I  killed  a  very  tiny  snake,  only 
ten  inches  long,  but  with  six  rattles.  He  had  the 
prettiest  skin  I  ever  saw ;  and  he  was  so  wee  I 
"  didn't  know  he  was  loaded."  He  was  only  half 
dead  when  I  reached  Kit  Carson,  and  all  that 
dozen  miles  was  wriggling  at  the  end  of  a  string 
tied  to  a  leg  of  the  antelope  on  my  shoulder,  his 


26  A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTOinBNT 

spasmodic  mouth  opening  and  shutting  close  to 
my  fingers.  I  removed  them  from  this  careless 
proximity  very  hastily  when  the  station  agent 
shouted,  "Why,  you  fool,  he's  twice  as  pizen  as 
the  big  one  ! "  The  skin  of  the  larger  one  served 
me  as  a  hat  band,  until  a  mouse  devoured  it  for 
me  —  as  they  have  many  such  trophies  since.  I 
don't  know  why  mice  should  be  so  fond  of  eating 
snake-skins  —  unless  it  is  their  only  revenge  on 
their  traditional  foe. 

Kit  Carson,  which  I  reached  that  night,  was  a 
sad  example  of  the  "  floating  towns  "  of  early  Colo- 
rado. When  it  was  the  terminal  of  the  track,  it 
was  a  rough,  bustling  place  of  6000  people.  But 
soon  the  railroad  poked  a  few  miles  further 
through  the  brown  plains ;  the  houses  of  Kit  Car- 
son were  torn  down  and  moved  to  the  new  ter- 
minus ;  and  so  it  went  on ;  and  the  cities  of  a  day 
had  soon  left  only  a  station  and  a  dugout  or  two, 
up  to  which  the  coyotes  sneaked  impudently  as  of 
yore. 

The  Big  Sandy  "flows"  through  Kit  Carson. 
That  is  to  say,  there  is  a  broad  bed  of  parched 
sand,  white  with  alkali  dust,  stretching  along  the 
plain,  but  no  water  visible.  Scoop  out  a  few  hand- 
fuls  of  sand,  however,  and  you  will  come  to  water, 
brackish  with  alkali,  and  effective  enough  to  purge 
the  ancient  cities  of  the  plain.     That  "river"  fol- 


2T 


lows  the  track  for  about  fifty  miles,  and  is  the 
most  navigable  stream  in  Eastern  Colorado.  I 
had  not  seen  a  real  stream  since  I  left  little 
Ellis,  three  hundred  and  thirty-seven  miles  from 
Denver.  There  were  one  or  two  beds  with 
occasional  pools  in  their  hollows,  but  nothing 
better  in  all  that  long,  arid  stretch.  There  is  one 
little  muddy,  cattle-infested  pond  near  Kit  Carson, 
whose  acre  and  a  half  of  surface  was  covered 
thick  with  fat  mallard  ducks,  of  which  I  managed 
to  get  a  couple.  Here  also  I  killed  my  first  centi- 
pede —  a  hideous  fellow,  six  inches  long,  a  quarter 
of  an  inch  across  the  back,  and  with  about  a  hun- 
dred bow-legs,  each  tipped  with  a  black  fang.  Let 
one  walk  across  your  hand  undisturbed,  and  he 
leaves  a  highly  inflamed  red  track.  Hit  him  dur- 
ing that  march,  and  he  will  sink  those  hundred 
fangs  into  your  flesh,  and  it  will  rot  away  and  drop 
from  the  bones.  Eattlesnakes  and  huge,  hairy 
^•'  bush-spiders "  are  also  common  enough ;  but  the 
most  dreaded  creature  in  all  that  wilderness  is  the 
skunk !  The  natives  are  mortally  afraid  of  these 
pretty  but  unpleasant  fellows,  and  declare  that 
their  bite  is  sure  death.  The  bite  of  any  animal  — 
even  man  —  when  in  a  rage  is  highly  poisonous, 
and  I  dare  say  the  black-and-white  terror  of  the 
plains  largely  deserves  his  bad  repute.  He  is  very 
ready  to  attack  men.     The  wildest  laugh  I  ever 


28  A  TEAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

had  was  at  a  lonely  rancho  one  moonlit  night 
when  we  all  slept  out  of  doors.  I  awoke  to  see 
the  undressed  ranchero  fleeing  about  the  house  as 
though  the  very  deuce  were  after  him,  yelling 
"  murder ! "  at  every  jump,  and  a  big  striped  skunk 
loping  after  him,  in  great  apparent  enjoyment  of 
the  race. 

Saturday  night  brought  me  to  Bo-ye-ro  —  a  little 
water  tank  thirty  miles  west  of  Kit  Carson  —  after 
a  long,  vain  hunt  for  antelopes.  The  only  game  I 
saw  was  one  **  cotton-tail "  (the  small,  ordinary 
rabbit),  and  he  was  in  such  a  sorry  pickle  that 
I  made  no  offer  to  shoot  him.  A  huge,  dark  eagle, 
with  swooping  wings  that  must  have  spread  over 
six  feet,  had  his  big,  sharp  talons  fixed  in  the  poor 
little  fellow's  wool,  and  flopped  along  over  him  as 
he  ran.  How  the  rabbit  yelled!  In  that  still, 
open  air  you  might  have  heard  him  a  mile,  and  his 
screams  were  almost  human  in  their  agony.  Be- 
fore the  great  bird  had  flown  away  with  his  quarry, 
however,  he  spied  me  and  soared  off,  while  poor 
cotton-tail  limped  to  his  hole  to  die — for  a  rabbit 
never  survives  even  a  trifling  scratch. 

My  stomach  is  never  likely  to  forget  those  days 
across  the  Colorado  plains.  Meals  were  procurable 
only  at  the  far-apart  section-houses  —  and  such 
meals !  Had  it  not  been  for  the  rifle  I  should 
probably    have    been    starved    out.      Tough    and 


KEALLY  "OUT  WEST"  29 

ancient  corned  beef;  bread  the  color  and  consist- 
ency of  Illinois  mud ;  coffee  suggestive  of  the  Ohio 
"  on  a  raise  " ;  fermented  molasses  ;  butter  which 
needs  no  testimonial  from  me,  being  old  enough  to 
speak  for  itself ;  and  potatoes  with  all  the  water 
the  rivers  lack  —  that  was  the  range  of  the  bill  of 
unfair.  A  fifty-verse  song,  which  one  of  the 
section-men  at  White  Horse  sang,  touched  a  re- 
sponsive chord  of  my  abused  within :  — 

*♦  His  bread  was  nothin'  but  corndodger. 
His  beef  you  couldn't  chaw, 
But  he  charged  us  fifty  cents  a  meal 
In  the  State  of  Arkansaw  !  " 

As  for  the  sleeping,  the  softest  beds  to  be  found 
—  and  the  only  clean  ones  —  were  the  sand  and 
the  grass ;  and  upon  them  I  stretched  my  sleeping- 
bag  nightly,  writing  till  late  by  the  wavering  fire 
of  grass  and  little  roots,  and  then  turning  over  for 
so  sweet  a  sleep  as  beds  of  down  seldom  know. 
My  feet,  too,  shared  the  adversity,  though  now  so 
tough.  In  hunting  I  was  continually  stepping  — 
when  my  eyes  were  busy — into  patches  of  the 
prickly  pear,  and  more  than  once  the  maddening 
needles  pierced  shoes  and  foot.  Once,  when  I 
stumbled  and  fell  several  feet  into  such  a  patch, 
hundreds  of  the  sting-like  daggers  went  half  an 
inch  through  either  shoe,  pointing  forward.  I 
could  not  cut  off  the  shoe  and  walk  barefoot  a 


30  A  TKAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

hundred  miles  to  a  store,  and  to  walk  in  them  was 
equally  impossible.  So  they  had  to  be  pulled  off— 
an  indescribable  torture,  which  was  like  pulling 
out  violently  a  hundred  bedded  fish-hooks  —  and 
then  the  needles  had  to  be  carefully  plucked  from 
the  shoe. 

But  for  these  drawbacks  there  were  equal  atone- 
ments. That  high,  dry  air  was  an  exhilarating  joy 
to  the  swelling  lungs;  and  the  eyes,  sharpened 
daily  to  their  long-forgotten  keenness,  feasted  full 
on  a  sight  whose  memory  will  never  dim.  The 
snowy  range  of  the  Kockies,  shutting  the  whole 
western  sky  from  north  to  south,  far  as  sight  could 
reach  —  dazzling  white  by  day,  melting  to  indescrib- 
able purples  at  dawn  and  dusk,  distant,  severe,  and 
cold — they  are  the  picture  of  a  lifetime.  For  three 
hundred  miles  north  and  south  those  serrate  battle- 
ments split  the  sky,  with  here  and  there  the  sentinel 
heads  of  loftier  peaks  upreared.  Ninety  miles  to 
the  south  stood  the  vast  pyramid  of  Pike's  Peak, 
its  great  gray  head  rising  from  the  brown  plains 
like  a  giant.  North  as  far,  frowned  mighty  Long's 
Peak,  with  broad  shoulders  overshadowing  all  its 
fellows,  and  head  among  the  clouds ;  and  between 
their  host  of  brethren. 

Pike's  Peak  is  the  most  famous,  but  not  the 
highest  of  the  Colorado  mountains.  The  altitude 
of  the  Sierra  Blanca  is  14,464  feet  j  Mount  Evans, 


REALLY   "OUT   WEST*'  31 

14,430 ;  Gray's  Peak,  14,341 ;  Long's,  14,271 ;  Mount 
Wilson,  14,289;  La  Plata,  14,362;  Uncompahgre, 
14,235;  Mount  Harvard,  14,151;  Mount  Yale, 
14,121 ;  Mount  of  the  Holy  Cross,  14,176 ;  Culebra, 
14,049;  Pike's  Peak,  14,147.  There  are  scores  of 
other  peaks  from  10,000  to  13,000  feet  high,  and 
countless  "  foothills,"  of  which  each  is  taller  than 
our  noblest  mountain  in  the  East. 

Near  Magnolia  a  hard,  mean-faced,  foul-mouthed 
fellow  met  me,  and  before  I  fairly  noticed  him,  had 
a  cocked  revolver  under  my  nose  with  a  demand  to 
"  give  up  my  stuff."  I  was  considerably  worried, 
but  a  look  into  his  eyes  convinced  me  that  he 
lacked  what  is  called,  in  the  expressive  idiom  of 
the  plains,  "  sand."  "  Well,"  I  drawled,  "  I  haven't 
very  much,  but  what  there  is  you  are  welcome  to," 
and  unbuttoning  my  coat  deliberately,  as  if  for  a 
pocketbook,  I  jerked  out  the  big,  hidden  forty-four, 
knocked  the  pistol  from  his  fist  with  the  heavy  barrel 
in  the  same  motion,  and  gave  him  a  turn  at  looking 
down  a  muzzle.  Now  he  was  as  craven  as  he  had 
been  abusive,  and  begged  and  knelt  and  blubbered 
like  the  cowardly  cur  he  was.  I  pocketed  his  pistol, 
which  is  still  among  my  relics,  gave  him  a  few 
hearty  kicks  and  cuffs  for  the  horrible  names  he 
had  called  me  when  he  was  "  in  power,"  and  left 
him  grovelling  there. 

So,  striding  light  across  the  bare,  dry  plateaus, 


32  A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

over  tlie  alkali-frosted  sands  of  waterless  rivers, 
glad  in  the  glorious  air  and  the  glorious  view, 
knocking  over  an  antelope  now  and  then,  compan- 
ioned by  squeaky  prairie  dogs  and  sung  to  sleep 
by  the  vociferous  coyotes,  I  came,  on  the  23d  of 
October,  to  handsome,  wide-awake  Denver,  the 
Queen  City  of  the  plains. 

Here  I  met  my  family,  who  had  come  by  the 
swifter  but  less  interesting  Pullman,  and  we  had 
four  happy  days  together  before  they  started  for 
San  Francisco  by  the  Central  Pacific,  and  I  donned 
my  knapsack  again  and  turned  my  tough  feet  south- 
ward. And  what  a  glorious  revenge  those  four  days 
in  civilization  gave  my  stomach  upon  its  weeks  of 
adversity !  The  waiters  at  the  Windsor  used  to 
stand  along  the  wall  in  respectful  awe  to  see  that 
wilderness  of  dishes  before  me  explored,  conquered, 
and  finally  overwhelmed ! 


Ill 

IN  AND  OUT  AMONG  THE  ROCKIES 

Trout-Fishing  in  the  South  Platte.  —  A  Wonderful  Canal.  — 
The  Little  Ranch  on  Plum  Creek.  —  Playing  Pack-Mule. 

—  Coaxing  a  Rabbit  from  his  Burrow.  —  A  Hard  Night. 

—  Blown  from  a  Bridge.  —  The  Wonderland  of  the 
Rockies. 

With  an  increased  and  decidedly  irksome  load  I 
walked  south  from  Denver,  planning  to  reach  Colo- 
rado Springs  as  speedily  as  possible,  and  thence 
make  numerous  side  tours;  but  we  spin  not  the 
thread  of  Clotho.  At  Acequia  (a  town  named  after 
the  Spanish  irrigating  ditch,  and  popularly  pro- 
nounced Saky)  an  accidental  chat  with  the  section 
foreman  threw  me  a  fortnight  out  of  my  course. 
He  said  there  were  "trout  over  behind  yan  hog- 
backs"—  pointing  to  a  long,  rocky  wall  at  the 
foot  of  the  range,  some  twenty  miles  away.  Trout  ? 
Trout!  Why,  for  three  years  I  had  been  fairly 
starving  for  a  bout  with  those  beauties  —  a  hunger 
which  the  catfish  and  "  lamplighters  "  of  Ohio  had 


34    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

utterly  failed  to  satisfy.  Hardly  pausing  to  thank 
the  herald  of  joyful  tidings,  I  took  a  bee-line  across 
the  rough  plain  at  a  five-mile  gait,  forgetful  of  din- 
ner, my  load  —  and  indeed  of  everything  save  my 
polka-dotted  idols  over  yonder.  The  range  looked 
but  two  or  three  miles  away  at  the  outset;  but 
when  I  had  walked  rapidly  for  three  solid  hours 
and  the  dusk  was  closing  in,  it  seemed  farther 
away  than  ever,  and  the  wolf  began  to  gnaw  at  my 
belt.  Just  in  the  edge  of  night  I  found  a  shabby 
little  cabin  on  Plum  Creek,  whose  kindly,  inquisi- 
tive folk  found  a  good  supper  and  a  good  bed  for 
me.  But  my  heart  sank  when  they  declared  with 
great  positiveness  that  there  were  no  trout  within 
two  days'  march,  and  they  "reckoned  they  mout 
know,  beings  they'd  lived  in  them  mount'ns  goin' 
on  twenty  year."  So  to-morrow  I  was  to  have  no 
trout,  but  only  that  pretty  tramp  back  to  the  rail- 
road. I  dreamt  that  night  that  a  monster  trout 
was  swallowing  the  section  foreman;  and  I  heartily 
wished  the  dream  might  come  true. 

But  with  the  morning  came  better  thoughts.  I 
would  see  for  myself  —  and  sunrise  found  me 
scrambling  over  the  steep,  rocky  foothills  toward 
Turk's  Head.  At  two  in  the  afternoon  a  sandy 
side  ravine  brought  me  suddenly  out  into  the  bot- 
tom of  the  Platte  Canon,  beside  the  shouting  river. 
A  glorious  little  stream  it  is  —  clear  and  confident 


IN  AND  OUT  AMONG  THE  ROCKIES         35 

and  headstrong  as  youth,  cold  as  ice,  swift  as  an 
arrow,  rollicking  noisily  along  the  tortuous,  boul- 
der-strewn channel  it  has  chiselled,  down  through  a 
thousand  feet  of  granite. 

Two  minutes  later  I  was  trimming  the  branches 
from  a  long,  heavy  young  cottonwood,  and  attach- 
ing a  line.  Grasshoppers  were  plenty  in  the  canon 
— and  soon  plenty  in  the  case  of  my  harmonica. 
Just  where  a  huge  ledge  jutted  twenty  feet  into 
a  deep  pool  of  delicious  green  I  made  the  first 
cast.  As  the  'hopper  fell  within  a  foot  of  the 
water,  whizz !  came  a  flash  from  the  depths  high 
into  the  air,  smote  the  bait  with  dexterous  tail,  and 
drove  it  straight  into  an  open  mouth.  Splash! 
Swish !  Off  went  the  line,  sawing  through  the 
deep  water,  while  that  twenty -pound  mollusk  of  a 
pole  bent  fairly  double.  What  a  glorious  electricity 
it  is  that  tingles  through  your  fingers  at  that  first 
strike  of  a  trout.  The  pickerel  of  our  lily-flecked 
New  England  ponds  seizes  his  prey  with  a  barely 
comparable  rush,  but  then  he  goes  loafing  away, 
mincing  at  the  minnow  critically,  dubious  whether 
to  swallow  or  no ;  and  when  you  snub  him  he  soon 
pulls  in  like  a  limber  stick.  The  bass,  be  he 
green,  striped,  or  black,  fights  doggedly'-  to  the  last, 
but  he  is  too  clumsy.  But  when  King  Trout  —  the 
athlete,  the  sage,  and  the  hero  of  fish  —  makes  up 
his  cunning  head  that  he'll  risk  that  specious  fly, 


^UFOf^^>' 


36         A  TBAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

then  look  out  for  music !  From  the  instant  he  first 
touches  the  hook,  until  you  tear  him,  still  fighting, 
from  his  rippling  kingdom,  there  is  no  time  to 
breathe.  Your  line  hisses  down  stream  as  if  tied 
to  a  bullet.  Then  as  swiftly  it  tears  up  against 
the  current.  If  there  be  a  snag,  a  root,  a  tangling 
rock  in  that  whole  pool  around  which  Sir  Trout 
may  tie  your  line  in  a  double  knot,  rest  assured  he 
will  do  it  —  unless  you  hold  a  steady  rein  on  him. 
He  will  double,  leap  high  above  the  water,  dive  to 
the  rocky  bottom,  turn,  twist,  and  jerk  with  infinite 
ingenuity,  to  tear  the  cruel  Limerick  from  his  jaw. 
And  if  at  last  you  lift  him  upon  the  bank  in  safety 
you  need  feel  no  shame  that  in  the  contest  of  wits 
it  has  taken  your  very  keenest  to  beat  that  cold- 
blooded little  fellow. 

It  took  me  full  five  minutes  to  land  my  game, 
though  he  weighed  but  three-quarters  of  a  pound ; 
and  when  he  flopped  beside  me  on  the  bank  I  threw 
up  my  hat  and  whooped  and  danced  as  wildly 
as  twenty  years  before.  During  the  afternoon  I 
caught  twenty  more,  and  in  that  whole  noble  string 
one  could  not  tell  "  toother  from  which,"  so  exactly 
were  they  of  a  size.  Away  up  on  the  headwaters, 
back  of  Pike's  Peak,  in  a  rough  and  trackless  wil- 
derness, a  few  days  later,  I  found  much  larger  trout. 
The  Rocky  Mountain  trout  are  not  nearly  so  beau- 
tiful as  the  princes  of  the  Maine  and  New  Hamp- 


IN  AND  OUT  AMONG  THE  ROCKIES         37 

shire  brooks,  of  which  they  look  like  a  blurred  and 
faded  reprint,  but  none  the  less  they  jure  famous 
sport. 

The  canon  of  the  South  Platte  is  about  thirty 
miles  long;  and  though  tame  compared  with  the 
inner  gorges  of  the  range,  is  wild  and  cliff-crowded, 
and  rock-strewn  and  tortuous  enough  to  impress 
the  most  careless.  The  sinuous  narrow-gauge  Den- 
ver and  South  Park  Railroad  winds  like  a  steel 
snake  along  the  bank  of  the  noisy  little  river, 
wriggling  between  huge  boulders,  crawling  around 
the  feet  of  granite  giants  that  the  rains  and  frosts 
of  ten  million  years  have  carved  from  the  eternal 
rock.  The  shaggy  cliffs  rise  a  thousand  feet  above 
the  restless  stream,  and  here  and  there  are  mirrored 
in  the  pellucid  pools. 

Near  the  northern  end  of  this  canon  is  the  begin- 
ning of  a  remarkable  canal  —  the  "  high-line  "  irri- 
gating ditch.  This  canal  had  then  a  total  length 
of  eighty-three  miles,  a  width  of  twenty  feet,  and 
carried  1184  cubic  feet  of  water  per  second  past  a 
given  point.  For  miles  its  bed  is  hewn  from  the 
living  rock,  and  at  one  point  in  the  canon  it  burrows 
through  the  heart  of  a  great  mountain  of  red  granite 
by  a  tunnel  seven  hundred  feet  long,  twenty  wide, 
and  ten  high.  In  Colorado,  as  in  New  Mexico, 
Arizona,  and  much  more  of  the  vast  Southwest,  the 
rainfall  is  too  slight  to  nourish  the  crops,  and  the 


88    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

necessity  for  irrigation  has  led  to  the  construction 
of  countless  thousands  of  miles  of  ditches  to  bring 
water  to  the  thirsty  fields. 

After  a  long  and  glorious  mingling  with  the  trout 
of  the  South  Platte,  I  finally  got  back  to  the  little 
rancho  on  Plum  Creek,  where  my  pack  awaited  me. 
As  I  attacked  a  late  and  lonely  supper,  the  gawky 
son  of  the  family  sat  up  to  the  table  and  leisurely 
dressed  my  fish  under  my  very  nose — but  a  hunter's 
stomach  does  not  mind  these  little  things.  My  host 
was  a  "  York  Yankee,"  shaggy-browed  and  weath- 
ered, inclined  to  be  sociable,  but  never  spendthrift 
of  words. 

In  the  seven  years  ending  with  1878,  Colorado 
was  devoured  by  grasshoppers.  Her  corn-fields 
disappeared  as  by  fire ;  the  grass  which  is  the  life 
of  her  millions  of  horses,  cattle,  and  sheep  was 
stripped  to  the  roots,  and  her  trees  shivered  in 
leafless  nakedness.  One  July  morning  in  1875  my 
old  Yankee  drove  off  to  Denver.  When  he  got 
home  next  evening  his  twenty  acres  of  corn  was 
absolutely  wiped  from  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  his 
cattle  range  was  bare  ground,  and  not  a  straw  was 
left  of  his  tall  stacks.  He  showed  me  where  the 
ravenous  insects  had  even  gnawed  half  through 
the  sheathing  at  the  bottom  of  the  outer  walls  of 
the  house. 

So  the  old  man  rambled  on  ^  and  at  last,  while  I 


IN  AND  OUT  AMONG  THE  ROCKIES         39 

resumed  my  writing  at  the  rickety  table,  the  honest 
ranchero  and  his  buxom  spouse  disrobed  and  sought 
their  virtuous  couch  in  the  nearest  corner.  They 
had  a  few  cattle,  and  lived  by  selling  butter,  cord- 
wood,  and  railroad  ties  —  the  latter  hewed  in  the 
mountains  and  hauled  out  by  gaunt  but  tireless 
little  ponies  over  "  roads "  more  unspeakable  than 
those  of  the  Virginia  hills.  Their  rancho  was 
school-lands,  which  they  neither  bought  nor  rented, 
but  had  simply  to  pay  taxes  upon ;  and  they  were 
condoling  with  a  neighbor  who  had  leased  some 
of  these  lands  and  had  to  pay  a  yearly  rental  of 
twenty-five  cents  an  acre. 

My  writing  kept  me  busy  till  within  two  hours 
of  sunset  next  day,  and  then  there  was  a  rough 
seventeen  miles  between  me  and  the  necessary  post- 
office.  Over  hills  and  valleys,  gullies,  irrigating 
ditches,  and  cactus  I  stumbled  on  through  the  dark, 
steering  by  the  stars ;  and  at  last  reached  Sedalia, 
just  in  time  for  the  mail,  but  wet,  lame,  and  raven- 
ous. A  pair  of  scales  showed  me  that  my  load  — 
the  heavy  rifle  and  six-shooter,  cartridge-belt,  knap- 
sack, blanket,  change  of  shirt  and  stockings,  etc., 
weighed  thirty-seven  pounds;  and  that  at  once 
struck  me  as  "riding  a  free  horse  to  death." 
Thenceforth  all  that  could  possibly  be  spared  went 
ahead  from  station  to  station  on  the  broader  shoul- 
ders of  the  express  company ;  and  many  a  night  I 


40  A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

nearly  froze  for  want  of  the  blanket  which  was  sure 
to  be  ahead  of  or  behind  me. 

Lightened  by  twelve  grateful  pounds  I  resumed 
the  march  next  day,  zigzagging  for  a  week  from  road 
to  mountains  and  back  again,  as  the  whim  seized 
me,  finding  enough  game  to  be  interesting,  and  en- 
joying every  moment  as  keenly  as  only  trained  mus- 
cles and  careless  mind  can  enjoy.  One  cotton-tail 
that  I  shot  near  Castle  Rock  rolled  down  his  bur- 
row dead,  and  would  have  escaped  me  but  for  a 
boyhood  lesson  from  old  Hugh,  back  in  the  White 
Mountains.  With  the  end  of  my  staff  I  could  just 
feel  the  limp  fur  at  the  bottom  of  the  hole.  Wet- 
ting the  end  of  the  stick  with  my  mouth,  I  put  it 
down  until  it  touched  bunny,  and  twisted  it  around 
gently  a  few  times.  Then,  when  I  drew  it  care- 
fully out,  there  was  the  rabbit  at  the  end,  bound  by 
a  delicate  cable  of  his  own  silky  hair. 

The  full  moon  was  high  overhead  as  I  wound 
through  the  lonely  canon  of  Plum  Creek ;  and  mid- 
way of  that  bare  defile  my  ears  pricked  up  at  an 
old  familiar  sound,  for  years  unheard  and  almost 
forgotten  —  the  long,  weird  howl  of  the  gray  wolf. 
It  is  a  cry  to  make  the  blood  curdle ;  but  there  was 
no  answering  yell,  and  after  the  first  startled  grab 
at  the  butt  of  my  forty -four  I  plodded  on. 

At  Larkspur  that  night  there  awaited  me  a  cold 
welcome.    It  was  bitter  weather.    Under  the  water- 


IN  AND  OUT  AMONG  THE  ROCKIES         41 

tank  the  ice  was  three  inches  thick,  and  the  savage 
wind  roared  down  the  canon  in  icy  gusts.  There 
was  no  place  to  sleep  save  in  the  "bunk-house." 
That  had  one  occupant,  and  he  had  one  blanket. 
My  own  was  in  Colorado  Springs,  and  not  even  a 
gunny-sack  was  to  be  found  to  mitigate  the  night. 
The  old  track-walker  shivered  under  his  one  tat- 
tered cover,  and  would  have  no  fire  in  the  battered 
stove;  he  said  it  "would  make  the  boogs  too 
wa-akeful."  I  froze  on  the  bare  planks  till  mid- 
night and  then  in' desperation  took  the  law  and  the 
stove  into  my  own  hands  and  built  a  roaring  fire, 
which  made  the  night  endurable,  though  I  had  to  sally 
forth  several  times  before  morning  to  "rustle"  fuel. 
From  Larkspur  to  the  top  of  the  divide,  8000 
feet  above  sea  level,  was  a  steady  uphill  pull,  grow- 
ing cooler  at  every  step  and  in  the  teeth  of  the 
very  worst  wind  I  ever  encountered.  By  afternoon 
it  was  a  perfect  gale,  against  which  I  could  make 
scant  two  miles  an  hour  by  the  most  violent  exer- 
tion. At  the  door  of  one  lonely  house  I  knocked, 
and  politely  asked  if  they  could  lend  me  an  auger. 
"What  d^ye  want  of  a  auger?"  snapped  the  hard- 
faced  woman  who  answered  my  rap.  "Why,  I 
thought,  madam,  that  it  might  help  me  bore  through 
this  wind  "  —  but  she  slammed  the  door  in  the  face 
of  this  ill-timed  witticism,  and  I  went  without 
dinner  to  pay  for  being  "funny." 


42    A  TBAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

The  temperature  kept  falling  and  the  gale  rising 
as  the  day  wore  on.  It  was  already  generously 
below  zero.  Near  the  aptly  named  side  track  of 
Greenland,  I  was  crossing  a  trestle  which  spans 
Carpenter's  Creek  when  a  sudden  gust,  resistless  as 
a  wall,  swept  me  off  bodily  and  flung  me  upon  the 
ice  and  frozen  sand  a  score  of  feet  below.  The  ice 
—  thanks  to  the  wind — had  but  lately  formed,  and 
through  I  went  into  a  shallow  pool.  It  was  better 
than  falling  on  the  slag  rip-rap  at  the  ends  of  the 
bridge ;  but  the  eight  miles  to  shelter,  walking  with 
clothing  frozen  stiff  as  a  plank  and  nearly  every 
bone  in  my  body  aching,  were  anything  but  hilarious. 

From  the  top  of  the  divide  there  were  no  tempta- 
tions from  a  straight  road  to  Colorado  Springs,  the 
lovely  little  city  in  the  edge  of  the  plain  under  the 
very  shadow  of  Pike's  Peak.  Just  back  of  town  is 
a  hillock  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  higher  than 
the  main  street,  sarcastically  known  as  Mount 
Washington,  because  it  has  just  the  same  altitude 
above  sea  level  as  the  chief  of  our  Eastern  moun- 
tains. 

Not  far  back  into  the  foothills  from  Colorado 
Springs  begins  the  Garden  of  the  Gods  —  a  wonder- 
land fitly  named.  Here,  walled  in  by  rock-bound 
peaks,  is  a  wild  glen  of  2000  acres,  and  in  it,  amid 
the  murmuring  pines,  a  hundred  colossal  towers  and 
castles,  pinnacles  and  battlements  hewn  by  time 


IN  AND  OUT  AMONG  THE  ROCKIES         43 

from  the  deep  red  sandstone.  In  the  centre  of  a 
great  amphitheatre  four  titanic  crags,  blood-hued 
and  radiant,  burst  from  the  level  ground  and  soar 
three  hundred  feet  aloft.  Their  tops  are  fretted 
into  jagged  points,  and  their  sides  worn  smooth  and 
sheer.  One  of  the  strange  "monuments"  in  this 
"  land  of  the  standing  rocks  "  is  little  larger  around 
than  a  barrel,  but  fifty  feet  high.  The  heights  of 
shaggy  Olympus  were  tame  beside  this  stone  vision. 
Perchance  fat  Bacchus  and  knotty  Hercules,  return- 
ing from  some  godly  revel,  stopped  at  these  then 
uncarven  cliffs ;  and  while  the  tricksy  fancy  of  the 
God  of  Wine  mapped  out  the  imagery  of  what  now 
is,  the  God  of  Muscle  twisted  and  tore  the  sand- 
stones to  these  fantastic  shapes.  But  I  do  not  wish 
to  describe  that  wonderland  —  even  if  I  could.  It 
is  something  which  every  American  should  see; 
and  seeing  it  he  will  realize  how  little  can  words 
give  an  idea  of  its  radiant  glory.  Near  by,  too,  are 
superb  waterfalls,  beautiful  caves,  and  many  other 
delights ;  and — what  I  fear  was  almost  as  interest- 
ing to  me  —  trout  I 


IV 

MOUNTAIN  DAYS 

Up  Pike's  Peak.  —  The  Highest  Inhabited  Building.  —  The 
Costliest  Cordwood  in  the  World.  —  The  Twin  Gorges. 
—  A  Relic  of  the  Argonauts.  —  The  Odyssey  of  the 
Rockies. — Twice  Scalped. — A  Mountain  Lion  in  the 
Stable. 

Sallying  forth  from  pretty  little  Manitou  at 
10  A.M.  on  November  4  I  strode  up  the  steep  trail  to 
Engleman's  Canon,  bound  for  Pike's  Peak.  This 
was  before  the  skyward  railroad  had  been  built  or 
even  planned,  and  to  get  to  the  top  of  that  giant 
mountain  one  had  then  to  earn  his  passage.  But 
mountain-climbing  was  an  old  story,  and  for  several 
miles  I  found  little  difficulty.  The  old  trail  was 
very  rough  and  steep  along  the  dashing  brook, 
whose  fringe  of  bushes  bent  with  pear-shaped 
icicles.  It  seemed  odd  to  see  icicles  with  the  big 
end  down ;  but  these  came  from  the  spray,  which, 
of  course,  was  thickest  nearer  the  brook. 

After  getting  up  out  of  the  cafion,  and  upon  a 
44 


MOUNTAIN  DAYS  45 

southerly  spur  of  the  peak,  I  began  to  find  trouble 
with  the  snow,  which  had  drifted  a  couple  of  feet 
deep  in  the  trough-like  trail.  There  was  no  dodg- 
ing it,  however,  for  outside  the  one  path  all  was 
loose,  sharp  rocks.  At  the  wild,  desolate  timber- 
line,  where  the  last  scrubby  dwarf  of  a  tree  clung 
sadly  amid  the  rocks,  matters  grew  worse ;  for  as 
soon  as  I  rounded  Windy  Point,  a  savage,  icy  blast 
from  the  snow-peaks  of  the  Sangre  de  Cristo  fairly 
stabbed  me  through  and  through.  My  perspiration- 
soaked  clothing  turned  stiff  as  a  board  in  five  min- 
utes, and  the  very  marrow  in  my  bones  seemed 
frozen  despite  the  violent  exercise  of  climbing. 
Worst  of  all,  it  was  almost  impossible  to  breathe 
in  the  face  of  that  icy  gale,  though  otherwise  I 
have  never  felt  any  of  the  unpleasant  symptoms, 
either  in  heart,  lungs,  or  nerves,  experienced  by 
many  at  that  altitude. 

It  was  3.30  P.M.  when  I  stood  panting  at  the  door 
of  the  signal  service  station  on  the  very  crest  of 
Pike's  Peak — then,  and  perhaps  still,  the  highest 
inhabited  building  on  earth.  It  is  14,147  feet  above 
the  level  of  the  sea — more  than  two  miles  higher 
than  most  of  you  who  read  this.  It  was  built  in  1882 
by  the  government  at  great  expense.  The  build- 
ing was  a  strong  box  of  stone,  some  twenty  feet  by 
forty,  with  walls  four  feet  thick,  well  padded,  and 
contained  five  very  comfortable  rooms.     Since  my 


46    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

time  it  has  been  enlarged.  The  corps  of  observers 
have  a  very  fair  time  of  it,  except  in  winter,  when 
they  are  imprisoned  by  the  snow  for  months  at  a 
time.  In  summer  the  observer  spends  two  weeks 
on  the  peak  and  then  goes  down  to  Colorado 
Springs  for  a  fortnight,  being  relieved  by  his  chum, 
who  comes  up  from  a  vacation,  as  he  goes  down  to 
one.  The  observations  of  the  various  instruments 
for  recording  temperature,  velocity  of  wind,  changes 
of  weather,  etc.,  have  to  be  recorded  five  times  a 
day. 

Every  article  of  supply  has  to  be  "  packed "  up 
that  long,  narrow  trail  on  burros.  The  fuel  is  pine 
wood  transported  from  timber-line  on  burro-back, 
six  sticks  at  a  load.  Uncle  Sam  owns  the  wood, 
but  has  to  pay  $23  a  cord  for  cutting  and  hauling 
it  up.  It  costs  some  $1300  a  year  to  warm  the  one 
room  used  as  an  office.  So  it  is  very  high  fuel, 
in  more  senses  than  one. 

There  are  many  curious  things  about  an  altitude 
of  two  miles  and  a  half  above  the  sea.  The  nerves 
are  always  affected  seriously  in  time,  and  often 
very  unpleasantly  at  once.  Few  people  can  sleep 
at  first  at  such  an  elevation.  The  rare  air  seems  to 
evaporate  on  one's  skin,  and  leaves  a  delicious  cool- 
ness like  that  from  an  alcohol  bath.  The  great 
lessening  of  the  atmospheric  pressure  gives  a 
strange  and  delightful  sense  of  buoyancy. 


MOUNTAIN  DAYS  47 

Mount  Washington  and  its  signal  service  were  old 
friends  of  mine,  and  I  was  interested  in  a  compari- 
son between  the  old  New  Hampshire  monarch  and 
the  noble  Western  peak.  Timber-line  is  only  a 
relative  term ;  and  though  Pike's  Peak  is  far  more 
than  twice  as  tall  as  its  Eastern  brother,  and  the 
latter  would  make  only  a  literal  hole-in-the-ground 
in  the  plains  at  its  base,  the  distance  from  timber- 
line  to  summit  is  nearly  the  same  on  the  two 
mountains.  The  weather  is  far  severer  on  Mount 
Washington  than  on  Pike.  The  winds  attain  a 
velocity  of  fifty  per  cent  greater,  and,  owing  to  the 
far  greater  density  of  the  air,  are  much  more  power- 
ful in  proportion.  The  mean  temperature  is  much 
lower,  and  the  extreme  cold  of  the  lesser  peak  is 
never  paralleled  on  the  greater. 

The  view  from  Pike's  Peak  is  of  the  noblest  and 
strangest.  Such  a  vista  could  only  be  where  the 
greatest  mountains  elbow  the  infinite  plains.  East- 
ward they  stretch  in  an  infinite  sea  of  brown.  At 
their  edge  are  the  cameos  of  Manitou  and  Colorado 
Springs  ;  the  Garden  of  the  Gods,  now  a  toy  ;  the 
dark  thread  of  the  Ute  Pass,  through  which,  in 
Leadville's  palmy  days,  streamed  the  motley 
human  tide.  Seventy  miles  north  is  the  cloud 
that  is  Denver.  Fifty  miles  to  the  south,  the 
smoke  of  Pueblo  curls  up  from  the  prairie,  falls 
back  and  trails  along  the  plain  in  a  misty  belt, 


48    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

that  reaches  farther  eastward  than  the  eye  can 
follow.  A  little  pond-like  broadening  in  this 
smoke-river  shows  the  location  of  La  Junta,  one 
hundred  miles  away.  West  of  south,  in  long  and 
serried  ranks,  stand  the  Culebra  and  Sangre  de 
Cristo  ranges,  while  nearer,  tower  the  southern 
walls  of  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Arkansas.  Off  to 
the  west  are  the  far  giants  of  the  Rockies  in  incom- 
parable phalanx  —  for  Pike  stands  in  regal  isola- 
tion a  hundred  miles  from  any  peer.  His  sole 
companions  are  the  10,000  and  12,000  foot  "  foot- 
hills "  that  look  up  in  awe  to  his  lofty  throne. 

With  the  setting  of  the  sun  came  a  sight  even 
more  memorable.  As  the  red  disk  sank  behind  the 
west,  the  gigantic  shadow  of  the  peak  crept  up  on 
the  foothills,  leapt  across  to  the  plains,  and 
climbed  at  last  the  far  horizon  and  stood  high  in 
the  paling  heavens,  a  vast,  shadowy  pyramid.  It 
is  a  startling  thing  to  see  a  shadow  in  the  sky. 
For  a  few  moments  it  lingers  and  then  fades  in  the 
slow  twilight. 

A  perpendicular  mile  below  my  feet  that  night 
the  soft,  fleecy  clouds  went  drifting  along  the 
scarred  flanks  of  the  grim,  unmindful  giant,  while 
the  full  moon  poured  down  on  them  her  cold,  white 
glory.  Dimmer  than  the  clouds,  I  traced  the  white 
wraiths  of  Pike's  brother  titans,  as  they  tossed 
back  the  snow-hair  from  their  furrowed  brows,  and 


MOUNTAIN  DAYS  49 

stared  solemnly  at  the  round-faced  moon.  The  icy- 
wind  howled  against  the  low  building,  or  dashed 
off  to  drive  his  cloud-flocks  scurrying  hither  and 
yon  down  the  deeper  passes  of  the  range.  Time 
seems  hardly  to  exist  up  there.  Alive,  one  is  yet 
out  of  the  world.  The  impression  could  hardly  be 
stronger  if  one  stood  upon  a  planet  sole  in  all 


On  the  afternoon  of  the  5th,  I  jumped  and  slid 
the  twelve  miles  from  the  station  down  to  Manitou 
in  an  hour  and  fifty-one  minutes  —  a  downhill  race 
which  is  very  exhilarating  at  the  time,  but  is  apt 
to  have  wearisome  results  on  the  tendons  of  un- 
practised legs.  Next  day  I  set  out  early,  meaning 
to  explore  the  twin  Cheyenne  canons  and  get 
twenty  miles  or  so  out  on  the  abandoned  "  cut-off  " 
road  from  Colorado  Springs  to  Canon  City.  But 
again  those  speckled  rascals  upset  my  plans.  That 
unmistakable  brown  flash  in  one  of  the  pools  of  the 
south  canon  banished  all  other  thoughts,  and  from 
exploring  I  turned  to  gathering  belated  grasshop- 
pers. A  good  string  of  trout  soon  dangled  at  my 
belt,  and  then  a  rolling  boulder  pitched  me  a  dozen 
feet  into  an  icy  pool,  and  gave  me  a  severely 
sprained  ankle.  That  ended  the  fun,  and  I  had  to 
be  content  with  hobbling  through  the  two  small, 
but  beautiful,  gorges. 

There  is  a  fascination  of  their  own  about  these 


50    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

twin  gorges ;  and  though  they  are  small  and  I  have 
since  explored  the  sublimest  canons  on  earth,  the 
memories  of  Cheyenne  will  linger  with  me  long. 
At  the  northern  flank  of  Cheyenne  Mountain  —  a 
peak  without  a  base,  and  thrusting  its  grizzly  head 
4000  feet  out  of  the  flat  prairie  —  the  north  and 
south  forks  of  Cheyenne  Creek,  split  by  a  huge 
crag,  come  racing  down  the  mountain  ridges,  cold 
as  ice,  clear  as  crystal,  and  forever  white  with  foam 
from  their  breathless  leaps.  To  my  taste,  the 
South  Cafion  is  the  more  interesting,  though  there 
is  little  choice.  On  either  hand  beetle  seamed  and 
jagged  mountains  of  solid  rock ;  and  between  their 
grim  walls  dashes  the  impetuous  stream — too  clear 
and  effervescent  to  be  profaned  by  the  malarial 
title  of  creek.  A  short  stretch  beyond,  the  cliffs 
seem  actually  to  meet  and  blend.  Their  crags,  five 
hundred  feet  high,  are  not  more  than  thirty  feet 
apart,  and  a  sudden  angle  beyond  apparently  oblit- 
erates even  this  gap.  This  titanic  inner  portal  is 
the  gem  of  the  whole  locality ;  but  the  entire  two- 
mile  walk  to  the  head  of  the  canon  is  an  ever- 
varying  delight.  At  every  step  some  new  pinna- 
cle, or  crag,  or  cliff,  peers  down  at  the  beholder, 
and  the  great  ruddy  mountains  themselves  change 
from  ridges  to  peaks,  or  from  peaks  to  ridges,  as 
the  point  of  view  is  shifted.  Into  the  upper  end 
of  the  canon  the  brook  comes  shouting  down  over 


MOUNTAIN   DAYS  51 

"  the  Seven  Falls  "  —  a  beautiful  cascade  in  seven 
leaps  of  from  ten  to  thirty  feet  each.  A  rude  stair- 
case scales  the  cliff  beside  the  tumbling  water ;  and 
on  two  apparently  inaccessible  crags  three  hundred 
feet  above  are  tiny  observatories,  commanding  a 
glorious  view  of  the  surrounding  country. 

But  that  pestiferous  ankle  made  sight-seeing 
drag,  and  at  last  I  limped  off  into  the  plains  and 
was  glad  enough  to  stop  at  the  first  cabin  in  my 
way. 

It  was  a  very  interesting  spot  —  not  for  the 
rough  little  shanty,  but  for  the  battered,  grizzly 
old  miner  whose  home  it  was.  He  got  home,  a 
few  minutes  after  my  arrival,  from  the  mountains, 
where  he  had  been  pecking  away  at  one  of  his 
eighteen  prospect-holes  since  the  preceding  Janu- 
ary, while  his  two  young  boys  "  ran  the  ranch." 
For  twenty  years  this  shaggy-browed,  tangle- 
bearded  old  man  had  been  stumping  across  the 
ranges,  with  pick  and  sledge  and  heavy  drills  and 
frying-pan  and  blankets  and  provisions  on  his 
thick,  bent  shoulders.  And  while  drilling  time, 
money,  life,  into  the  iron  ribs  of  the  Rockies,  he 
had  acquired  the  wonderful  education  of  those  who 
have  had  to  carve  their  way  through  starvation 
and  disappointment  and  danger. 

It  did  me  good  to  hear  him  growl  away  in  some 
tale  of  the  days  in  which  he  was  part  —  when 


52         A  TRAMP   ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

Colorado  was  a  patch  of  the  great  desert ;  when 
the  three  Ute  tribes  were  thick  as  grasshoppers  on 
the  plains ;  when  through  the  winter  snows  of  the 
mountain  passes  struggled  the  long,  gaunt  train  of 
chasers  of  the  new  Eldorado.  How  some  stag- 
gered grimly  onward  under  their  heavy  packs, 
while  others  sank  sobbing  in  the  great  white 
drifts ;  how  a  few  "  struck  it  rich,"  while  the  for- 
gotten thousands  wore  out  their  lives  in  toiling  for 
the  fortune  that  never  came.  This  is  the  poetry 
and  the  romance  of  the  Rockies.  We  hear  of  the 
few  mining  kings, — the  golden  accidents  of  for- 
tune,—  but  who  shall  tell  the  epic  of  that  great 
heart-break,  that  myriad  suffering  of  the  unrequited 
multitude  ?  Beside  that  wild  story,  if  it  ever  be 
written,  the  wanderings  of  Ulysses  will  seem  a 
schoolboy's  recess.  These  men  left  wives  faithful 
as  Penelope  and  never  returned.  They  wandered 
farther  and  longer  on  blistered  feet  than  the  sage 
of  Ithaca  on  his  staunch  galley.  They  pierced  a 
stranger  and  wilder  land  than  ever  Caesar  dreamed 
of;  and  for  the  best  long  years  of  a  rugged  life- 
time they  suffered  the  rack  of  hardship  and  danger. 
The  strong,  true,  virile  simplicity  of  blind  old 
Homer,  the  poet  who  wrote  of  real  men,  is  gone. 
How  he  of  Scio's  rocky  isle  could  have  set  in 
rolling  verse  the  story  of  the  Pacific  Argonauts ! 
And  we  shall  never  have  that  story  in  its  strength 


MOUNTAIN  DAYS  53 

until  another  Homer  rises  to  sing  that  Odyssey 
of  the  Kockies  —  the  stormy  wanderings  of  that 
great  motley  throng,  the  scum  of  great  cities,  the 
sinew  of  the  workshop  and  the  farm;  the  gam- 
blers, ministers,  lawyers,  loafers,  bankers,  thieves, 
merchants,  beggars,  college  boys,  cowboys,  lads 
and  old  men  —  that  plodded  across  the  vast,  bare 
plains,  struggled  wearily  but  hopefully  up  the 
jagged  mountain  sides,  waded  the  heavy  snow 
and  icy  streams,  froze  and  starved,  but  never 
despaired.  How  they  ran  hither  and  yon  as  de- 
lusive Hope  blew  her  golden  bubbles  about  them ; 
how  they  tore  up  the  channels  of  the  wild  moun- 
tain streams,  and  grew  bent  in  handling  the  heavy 
sand  in  long  rocker  or  flaring  gold-pan ;  how  they 
dug  and  scraped  and  washed,  forgetting  to  eat  and 
sleep,  all  for  the  sake  of  the  little  yellow  scales 
that  might  blink  up  at  them  when  the  clean-up 
came.  How  young  men  became  old  and  bent  in 
the  feverish  chase,  —7  some  of  them  still  roam,  un- 
easy spectres,  through  the  gulches  of  the  farthest 
ranges,  —  and  old  men  laid  their  weary  bones  to 
rest  beside  the  lonely  claim,  the  little  buckskin  bag 
of  dust  still  clutched  in  their  bony  fingers.  How 
men  made  fortunes  in  some  golden  placer  and  then 
dropped  the  last  cent  into  some  worthless  hole. 
How  paupers  became  princes,  and  princes  paupers ; 
and  the  man  whose  claim  to-day  was  worth  its  hun- 


64         A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

dred  thousands,  to-morrow  turned,  a  beggar,  to 
"strike  it  again  "  in  the  hills.  How  that  heteroge- 
neous mass  of  humanity  —  akin  only  in  the  one 
absorbing  passion — battled  with  cold  and  hunger, 
with  disease  and  death,  with  beasts  thirsty  for 
blood,  and  desperate  men  still  thirstier  for  gold  — 
ah,  that  was  our  greatest,  longest,  strangest  tragedy. 
It  sends  a  thrill  through  one's  veins  to  meet  in 
some  lonely  cabin  a  gray-haired  remnant  of  those 
old  heroes  whose  superhuman  valor  and  vigor 
opened  these  western  States  and  Territories  to  civi- 
lization; the  men  whose  persistent  average  of  ill 
luck  buried  ten  dollars  in  the  ground  for  every 
dollar's  worth  of  "  dust "  that  was  taken  from  it ; 
yet  paved  the  way  to  the  prosperity  of  solid  busi- 
ness. But  to-day  they  are  half  forgotten.  The 
mountain  brooks  go  tumbling  unchecked  to  the 
rivers ;  their  bars  of  shifting  sand  are  unturned  by 
the  greedy  shovel,  and  the  little  grains  of  gold 
beneath  rest  free  from  prying  eyes.  For  the  days 
of  gold-washing  are  practically  over.  Placers  are 
still  worked  here  and  there,  but  they  are  mostly  in 
the  hands  of  slow-going  foreigners ;  for  the  restless 
American  is  now  delving  for  the  rock-bound  veins 
from  which  the  placer  gold  originally  came. 

One  of  the  old  man's  reminiscences  was  of  the 
later  but  still  "  woolly  "  West.  In  1877  a  wealthy 
Detroiter  went  home  from  his  mines  in  Leadville 


MOUNTAIN  DAYS  66 

and  told  some  very  large  stories.  His  exaggerated 
and  bragging  accounts  led  several  hundred  poor 
men  to  return  with  him  to  Leadville,  where  he 
glibly  promised  them  employment.  They  got 
there  only  to  find  the  camp  already  crowded  with 
unemployed  men  dependent  on  the  charity  of  the 
miners.  Most  of  them  were  without  means,  and 
soon  starvation  stared  them  in  the  face.  When 
the  miners  learned  the  situation,  they  made  the 
braggart  millionnaire  a  frontier  call.  An  impolite 
rope  was  stretched  over  a  cedar  branch,  and  one 
end  discommoded  his  neck.  "  Now,"  said  the  vis- 
itors, "you  fooled  these  men  out  here  to  starve,  by 
your  blowing.  They've  got  no  work  and  no  way 
to  get  home.  Give  them  fifty  dollars  apiece  to 
take  them  back  to  Detroit,  or  you'll  dance  on  noth- 
ing in  less'n  two  minutes." 

The  millionnaire  was  mulish,  and  they  swung  him 
np  once,  twice,  three  times.  At  the  third  eleva- 
tion he  gasped  surrender,  and  signed  a  check  for 
the  required  amount.  A  trusty  man  galloped  off 
toward  distant  Denver,  and  in  a  few  days  was  back 
with  the  money  to  send  the  befooled  Detroiters 
home. 

A  man  who  survives  being  scalped  is  a  rare  phe- 
nomenon; but  one  of  the  pioneers  of  Colorado 
went  through  that  frightful  experience  twice  and 
lived  for  years  after.    That  was  a  happy-go-lucky 


56  A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

Irishman  known  as  "Judge"  Baldwin.  He  once 
owned  the  land  on  which  Colorado  Springs  now 
stands,  —  being  swindled  out  of  it,  so  the  story 
goes,  by  wealthy  land-grabbers, — and  on  that 
very  spot  was  scalped  by  the  Utes  in  the  early 
days. 

A  few  years  later,  another  party  of  savages  on 
the  war-path  ran  across  the  old  miner,  shot  him, 
took  what  was  left  of  his  hair,  and  left  him  for 
dead  in  the  mountains.  He  revived,  however,  and 
got  to  help,  and  in  time  fully  recovered.  After 
such  wonderful  escapes,  Baldwin  was  found  one 
morning  drowned  in  two  feet  of  water ! 

The  sprained  ankle  was  too  painful  to  permit 
rapid  walking  next  day,  and  I  was  glad  when  eigh- 
teen hobbling  miles  brought  me  at  nightfall  to  a 
poor  little  ranch  on  waterless  Turkey  Creek,  where 
a  good-natured  young  man  and  his  white-haired 
mother  made  me  very  welcome. 

About  midnight  a  fearful  uproar  in  the  stable 
aroused  us ;  and  when  young  Bixby  and  I  ran  out, 
dressed,  as  Bill  Nye  says,  "in  the  garments  of  the 
night  and  a  little  brief  authority,"  a  huge  moun- 
tain lion  sprang  out  through  the  side  of  the  little 
shed  and  went  bounding  off  in  the  moonlight  thirty 
feet  at  a  leap,  even  after  our  startled  shots  had 
wounded  him,  as  red  drops  next  morning  showed. 
Inside  the  shed  one  of  the  young  calves  lay  dead, 


MOUNTAIN  DATS  57 

its  skull  crushed  and  neck  broken  by  one  fearful 
cuff  of  that  mighty  fore  paw. 

Walking  was  still  difficult  next  day,  and  I  did 
not  hurry,  but  limped  leisurely  along,  now  admiring 
the  beautiful  drift-quartz  brought  down  from  the 
frozen  north  in  some  prehistoric  glacier's  icy  fist, 
and  now  amused  by  the  clouds  of  chattering  bluejays 
and  impudent  magpies.  Here,  too,  I  first  became 
acquainted  with  the  curious  pinon  —  a  real  pine 
tree  which  bears  nuts  in  its  cones,  and  the  most 
delicious  little  nuts  I  know. 

Passing  the  night  comfortably  in  the  pretty 
Beaver  Creek  canon,  I  started  early  next  morning 
for  a  try  at  the  trout.  Soon,  however,  a  figure 
outlined  against  the  sky  at  the  top  of  a  great  cliff 
made  me  drop  my  willow  pole,  unsling  the  Win- 
chester from  my  back,  and  sneak  up  the  canon  in 
quest  of  some  point  at  which  the  cliff  might  be 
scaled.  Such  a  long,  breathless  dance  as  that  little 
flock  of  bighorns  led  me  over  cliff  and  canon !  and  a 
fruitless  one  too,  for  with  all  my  caution  I  could  not 
get  within  a  thousand  yards  of  them.  A  strange 
animal  is  the  cimarron,  bighorn,  or  mountain 
sheep,  as  he  is  variously  called.  Take  a  large  ram, 
double  the  size  of  his  horns,  plate  his  skull  with 
four  inches  of  hardest  bone,  and  you  have  an 
approximation  to  the  bighorn.  It  would  be  hard 
to  find  finer  frontlets  than  his.    Each  ponderous 


68    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

horn,  curving  three  to  five  times  upon  itself,  is 
thick  at  the  base  as  a  man's  thigh,  and  all  of  one 
solid  armor  with  the  head.  The  bighorn  does  not 
with  malice  aforethought  leap  from  high  cliffs  and 
alight  upon  his  head,  to  save  the  trouble  of  going 
around,  according  to  the  popular  fable ;  but  he  is 
sometimes  forced  off  or  slips,  sure-footed  as  he  is, 
and  then  that  wonderful  helmet  stands  him  in  good 
stead.  His  head  is  the  heaviest  part  of  his  body, 
and  he  is  almost  sure  to  strike  upon  it ;  and  it 
seems  none  the  worse  for  an  incredible  fall.  It  is 
a  sight  to  petrify  the  unaccustomed  hunter  when 
he  sees  Don  Cimarron  fall  fifty  feet  upon  a  ledge 
of  rocks,  rebound  into  the  air,  alight  upon  his  feet 
and  leap  away  as  though  nothing  had  happened  to 
give  him  so  much  as  a  headache. 

A  little  side-canon  near  the  "Buffalo  Sloughs" 
led  me  that  afternoon  to  the  rude,  lonely  cabin  of 
a  gray-haired  hunter.  He  hobbled  out  as  I  came 
up  and  shared  my  tobacco  on  a  sunny  rock.  "  Old 
Monny "  was  the  wreck  of  very  much  of  a  man. 
His  once  stalwart  figure  was  hideously  bent  and 
twisted.  The  right  shoulder  was  all  misshapen; 
and  the  right  leg  only  an  awful  rope  of  bone  in 
many  knots,  and  with  hardly  more  flesh  than  my 
wrist  has.  Eive  years  ago  that  day,  roughly  ten- 
der hands  had  carried  Monny  from  Dead  Man's 
Cafion,  a  cripple  for  life.     He  and  his  "pardner" 


MOUNTAIN  DAYS  69 

were  toiling  up  the  gorge,  their  small-bore,  muzzle- 
loading  Kentucky  rifles  over  their  shoulders.  Sud- 
denly, from  behind  a  huge  boulder  they  had  just 
passed,  lumbered  noiselessly  a  huge  brown-yellow 
beast,  heavy  as  a  fattened  steer.  A  wild  screech 
from  his  chum  whirled  Monny  about,  and  looking 
back,  he  saw  the  huge  cinnamon  bear  upreared  over 
a  still  palpitating  corpse,  whose  blood  and  brains 
were  dripping  from  one  gigantic  paw.  Monny 
threw  his  long,  heavy  barrel  to  as  steady  a  level 
as  if  the  game  had  been  a  squirrel,  and  drove 
the  little  leaden  pellet  through  the  lower  half  of 
the  monster's  heart.  But  a  cinnamon  dies  hard; 
and  before  the  hunter  could  reload  or  escape  up 
the  precipitous  rocks  the  brute  was  upon  him. 
Felling  hira  with  a  blow  that  crushed  his  right 
shoulder  like  an  eggshell,  the  bear  fell  dying  at 
his  side,  chewing  his  leg  from  thigh  to  ankle,  to 
its  last  breath,  and  then  lurched  dead  across  his 
almost  corpse.  And  that  is  why  there  is  one 
hunter  who  goes  on  a  crutch  to  his  beaver-traps 
and  in  quest  of  game.  Monny  showed  me  the  skin 
of  his  bear  —  eleven  feet  four  inches  from  tip  of 
nose  to  root  of  tail !  Upon  the  feet  were  still  the 
crescents  of  claws,  each  six  inches  long;  and  on 
one  side  was  the  wee,  round  hole  that  had  at  last 
let  out  the  great,  savage  life. 

A  few  miles  from  Monny 's  cabin  my  long  hunt 


60  A   TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

was  rewarded.  A  very  lucky  long  shot  brought 
down  a  fine,  black-tail  deer,  upon  whose  antlers 
were  six  spikes.  A  ranchero  who  bargained  to 
haul  the  carcass  out  to  town  for  me  evidently  con- 
cluded that  the  meat  was  worth  more  to  him  than 
the  stipulated  two  dollars  j  for  I  never  saw  buck  or 
ranchero  again. 

Along  the  roads  in  that  part  of  Colorado  I  fre- 
quently came  to  ranches  where  children  of  two  to 
six  years  were  "  staked "  in  front  of  the  house  by 
a  long,  strong  rope,  one  end  of  which  was  securely 
knotted  under  their  arms,  while  the  other  was  fas- 
tened to  a  stake.  This  seemed  very  funny,  but 
was  really  a  sensible  institution  to  keep  the  young- 
sters of  that  wild  country  from  straying  under  the 
hoofs  of  the  roving  cattle  or  into  the  reach  of  wild 
beasts. 

Late  at  night,  hot  and  dusty  from  a  thirty-five- 
mile  scramble  over  "  parks  "  and  canons,  I  pounded 
away  at  the  door  of  the  first  house  in  Cafion  City, 
where  a  greasy  but  abundant  supper  and  a  board 
"  bed  "  on  the  floor  beside  the  stove  coaxed  me  to 
dream  of  almost  everything  except  the  remarkable 
experiences  the  morrow  had  in  store. 


SKIRTING  THE  ROCKIES 

A  Shadow  saves  my  Life. —  A  Fine  Canon.  — A  Midnight 
Fight  with  a  Wildcat.  — A  Frank  Prayer.  —  Lucky 
Bassick  and  his  Claim.  —  A  Humble  Friend  in  Need. — 
Finding  a  Comrade. 

I  WAS  a  good  deal  older  than  the  youth  of  the 
Grecian  myth  when  I  fell  in  love  with  my  own 
shadow,  and  it  was  not,  as  in  his  case,  because  of 
its  beauty,  but  for  its  usefulness.  Had  I  been  one 
of  those  people  who  are  "  so  thin  they  have  to  walk 
twice  to  make  a  shadow,''  I  should  not  be  writing 
now ;  for  on  that  pretty  November  day,  just  out  of 
Canon  City,  there  was  no  time  for  the  second  walk- 
ing. That  event  recurs  oftenest  to  my  mind  as  an 
instance  of  what  very  slender  threads  they  some- 
times are  by  which  our  lives  hang.  Had  it  been  a 
cloudy  day,  or  had  it  been  just  as  bright  and  the 
sun  an  hour  higher,  or  had  a  certain  road  run  south 
instead  of  west,  or  had  it  been  fringed  with  grass 
instead  of  level  dust,  my  tramp  and  my  life  would 
have  ended  together  very  abruptly. 

61 


62  A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

Leaving  the  rifle  in  Cailon  City,  I  started  early 
to  explore  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Arkansaw, 
whose  bluff  portals  open  a  couple  of  miles  west  of 
town.  Half-way  thither  I  noticed  a  huge  stone 
building  against  the  side  of  a  white  hill  of  lime- 
stone, half  hidden  by  the  clouds  from  a  score  of 
limekilns.  I  had  talked  with  no  one  in  Canon 
City,  and  had  no  idea  what  this  building  was ;  but 
at  nearer  approach  the  sight  of  watchful,  hard- 
looking  men,  pacing  up  and  down  here  and  there, 
with  six-shooters  on  their  hips  and  double-barrelled 
shotguns  over  their  shoulders,  told  the  story  as 
unmistakably  as  words  told  me  later.  Swarming 
about  the  kilns,  delving  in  the  hillside,  and  engaged 
at  various  other  works,  were  hundreds  of  fellows 
in  tell-tale  stripes  of  black  and  white.  It  was  the 
Colorado  penitentiary,  containing  at  that  time 
three  hundred  and  fifty-odd  convicts  —  mostly 
murderers  and  "rustlers '*  (horse  thieves)  — all  of 
whom  worked  outside  the  walls  by  day,  unfettered, 
but  under  guard. 

Never  having  seen  prisoners  thus  loose,  I  grew 
interested  and  trotted  like  any  other  fool  along 
the  sidewalk,  gazing  curiously  at  the  vicious  faces 
of  the  hundred  jailbirds  who  were  at  work  on  the 
two-foot  wall  at  my  very  side.  It  did  occur  to 
me  that  my  appearance  caused  considerable  excite- 
ment among  them ;  but  I  could  not  take  the  hint, 


SKIETINQ  THE  ROCKIES  63 

though  their  faces  wore  the  very  look  of  hungry- 
wolves.  I  was  walking  westward,  and  the  morn- 
ing sun  was  behind  my  back  —  two  trifles  for 
which  I  have  ever  since  been  grateful.  A  group 
of  convicts  rallying  to  some  work  a  few  hundred 
feet  to  the  south  caught  my  eye  and  turned  me 
half  back  to  the  wall.  As  I  stopped  to  gaze  at 
them,  something  seemed  to  drag  my  eyes  down  to 
the  light,  smooth  dust  in  front  of  me,  and  there 
was  what  for  an  instant  made  my  heart  stop  beat- 
ing. It  was  only  a  shadow  —  a  clear,  sharp,  long 
shadow  thrown  beside  my  familiar  own  —  the 
shadow  of  a  larger  burly  figure  swinging  a  heavy 
stone-hammer  above  my  very  head !  That  silhou- 
ette on  the  sidewalk  will  never  lose  one  clear-cut 
line  in  my  memory.  I  had  been  stupid  before, 
but  I  was  awake  now.  To  spring  half-way  to  the 
middle  of  the  road  with  a  tremendous  leap  whose 
half  I  could  not  cover  now,  jerking  my  forty-four 
from  its  scabbard  even  while  in  the  air,  and  to 
"  throw  down "  on  the  convict  with  a  savage 
'•  Halt !  "  was  the  work  of  an  instant  —  and  none 
too  soon.  The  fellow  and  his  mates  sprang  back 
to  their  work  with  looks  of  baffled  rage,  and  one  of 
the  mounted  guards  came  up  in  such  a  dash  that 
he  nearly  rode  me  down.  Two  six-shooters  were 
buckled  to  his  waist,  and  his  hard  face  wore  an 
expression  which  was  anything  but  pleasant. 


64    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

"Why,  you  infernal  blankety-blank  fool,"  he 
snapped.  "  Don't  you  know  no  better'n  to  sashay 
along  in  reach  o'  them  fellers,  with  a  gun  stickin' 
out  handy-like  ?  There's  nineteen  life-termers  in 
thet  gang  you  was  a-huggin'  up  to  so,  an'  thet  pop 
o'  yourn  meant  life  an'  liberty  to  any  one  on  'em 
thet  could  get  his  hooks  onto  it.  'Bout  quarter  'f 
a  secont  an'  your  head  would  'a'  been  mush,  an' 
we'd  'a'  had  a  break  fur  the  hills.  Now  git  out 
into  the  middle  o'  the  road,  d — n  ye,  an'  keep 
ez  fur  from  anything  stripid  ez  you  know  how. 
Git ! "  I  shivered  a  little  and  "  got,''  and  found 
no  fault  with  the  dust  in  the  middle  of  the  road. 
Ordinarily  I  do  not  like  strangers  to  address  me  as 
brusquely  as  did  this  fortified  person  on  the  black 
horse,  but  under  the  circumstances  it  would  hardly 
have  made  me  resentful  had  he  shaken  me. 

To  guard  this  great  body  of  desperate  ruffians, 
there  were  thirty -eight  guards  on  foot,  armed  with 
double-barrelled  shotguns  (with  nine  buckshot  in 
each  barrel)  and  forty-five-calibre  six-shooters. 
Three  mounted  patrolmen,  without  guns,  but  carry- 
ing two  big  Colt's  revolvers  apiece,  were  constantly 
riding  about  the  entire  place.  In  the  little  stone 
sentry-boxes  along  the  high  wall  which  enclosed 
the  small  yard  of  the  "pen"  were  several  expert 
marksmen,  each  armed  with  the  finest  long-range 
rifle  ever  manufactured,  with  telescope  sights,  and 


SKIRTING  THE  ROCKIES  65 

good  in  such  hands  to  bring  down  a  man  at  eight 
hundred  yards  every  time.  But,  despite  these  des- 
perate odds  against  them,  the  unarmed  convicts 
sometimes  made  a  break  for  liberty.  Only  a  few 
months  before  this,  fourteen  of  the  worst  des- 
peradoes working  on  the  limestone  quarries  had 
"jumped"  their  "walking  boss"  with  rocks  and 
hammers.  By  almost  a  miracle  he  escaped  serious 
injury  from  their  first  volley  of  missiles  and  saved 
his  revolvers — the  object  of  attack.  Despite  the 
ominous  cries  of  "halt"  and  the  click  of  his  six- 
shooters  and  a  dozen  farther  guns,  three  of  the 
party  started  like  goats  up  the  precipitous  rock. 
Two  turned  back  as  the  buckshot  began  to  patter 
on  the  cliff  around  them,  but  the  third,  a  gritty 
murderer,  kept  on.  Under  that  deadly  fire  he 
gained  the  top  of  the  great  gray  ridge  and  looked 
across  into  the  rocky  fastnesses  of  the  great  range. 
In  two  seconds  more  he  would  be  out  of  sight  and 
safe — for  he  could  reach  the  canons  long  before 
any  pursuer.  And  just  then  there  was  a  little 
white  puff  from  the  corner  watch-tower,  away  down 
there  in  the  valley  a  full  thousand  yards  away ;  and 
the  mountain  echoes  caught  up  and  bandied  a  spite- 
ful "  crack  r^  The  convict  leaped  high  into  the  air 
with  a  wild  shriek,  and  fell  back  dead  upon  the 
sunny  rocks. 
For  the  unpleasant  experiences  of  the  morning 


66    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

the  later  hours  fully  repaid ;  and  among  the  glories 
of  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Arkansaw  I  forgot  all 
about  stripes  and  stone-hammers.  It  is  a  very 
small  caiion  beside  some  I  have  seen ;  but  a  very 
noble  and  imposing  one,  with  a  savage  grandeur 
all  its  own.  For  nine  miles  the  wild  little  river 
seethes  over  the  granite  debris  at  the  bottom  of  a 
gloomy  chasm  it  has  cut  through  the  Eocky  Moun- 
tains. As  the  range  rose  on  the  slow  upheaval  of 
the  inner  fires,  the  tireless  stream  kept  carving, 
chiselling,  gouging,  polishing,  with  the  flinty  tools 
itself  had  brought  for  unknown  miles ;  and  when 
the  flat  strata  had  changed  to  a  contorted  sierra, 
the  rugged  channel  kept  its  place  far  down  toward 
the  level  of  the  outer  plains.  The  mountains  beetle 
3000  feet  above  the  howling  torrent,  usually  in- 
accessible slopes,  but  sometimes  in  savage  cliffs 
which  overhang  the  very  stream.  About  midway 
of  the  canon  is  the  famous  Royal  Gorge,  with  sheer 
walls  a  thousand  feet  in  air.  The  Denver  and  Rio 
Grande  Railway,  bound  for  Salt  Lake,  follows  the 
river  through  this  whole  wild  pass;  and  in  the 
Royal  Gorge  hangs  to  the  vertical  cliff  by  great 
iron  rods  and  A-shaped  spans. 

After  exploring  the  cafion  from  end  to  end  I 
returned  to  Cafion  Citj'-,  resumed  my  rifle,  and 
struck  off  by  a  little  trail  into  the  Greenhorn 
Mountains  in  quest  of  game.     The  range  gets  its 


SKIRTING  THE  ROCKIES  67 

name  not  from  the  pervasive  tenderfoot,  but  from 
the  famous  Comanche  chief  Cuerno  Verde,  or 
Green  Horn,  whom  the  Spaniards  encountered 
there  in  the  last  century.  The  striking  miners  of 
Coal  Creek  were  just  then  scouring  the  country 
and  killing  even  the  blue  jays  to  stave  off  starva- 
tion ;  so  my  hunt  was  fruitless.  Nightfall  caught 
me  away  up  in  the  Wet  Mountains  without  food 
or  shelter.  Just  as  I  was  preparing,  however,  to 
dig  a  hole  and  crawl  in  out  of  the  cold  I  spied  a 
little  cabin  on  the  next  hill,  aud  was  soon  there. 
No  one  was  at  home ;  but  the  door  was  unlocked, 
and  the  pick,  gold-pan,  and  drills  told  me  that  the 
owner  was  a  miner  —  and  so  that  the  house  was 
free  to  use  by  a  stranger.  No  provisions  were 
discoverable,  but  I  had  about  a  peck  of  shrivelled 
wild  plums  in  my  pockets,  and  they  made  a  very 
good  supper  before  a  roaring  fire  of  the  fragrant 
cedar.  The  one  window  of  the  one  room  was 
merely  a  hole  in  the  wall ;  and  on  the  rafter  above 
my  head  the  miner's  six  ancient  hens  sat  in  a 
dumpy  row.  It  had  been  a  hard  day ;  and  after 
supper  I  rolled  myself  in  the  tattered  blankets  of 
my  unaware  host  and  soon  fell  asleep  before  the 
mud  fireplace. 

Along  in  the  night  a  great  uproar  overhead 
brought  me  to  my  feet  in  sleepy  alarm.  By  the 
dying  coals  I  could  see  two  savage  eyes  above  me, 


68    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

glowing  weirdly.  There  are  still  people  who  talk 
soberly  of  wild  beasts'  eyes  that  shine  in  utter 
darkness  —  as  though  there  were  such  a  thing  as 
phosphorescent  eyes  !  That,  of  course,  is  a  fable  — 
no  animal's  eyes  shine  except  by  reflection  of  some 
other  light,  any  more  than  the  moon  could  shine 
if  the  sun  were  quenched.  Many  a  time  I  have 
felt  wild  eyes  which  I  could  not  see,  and  when  I 
would  have  given  a  great  deal  to  be  able  to  locate 
the  invisible  danger  prowling  in  the  black  night 
about  me. 

But  now  I  was  not  stopping  to  ponder  whether 
those  two  spots  of  uncanny  yellow  glowed  with 
their  own  or  with  a  borrowed  light.  The  one 
present  proposition  was  that  they  were  eyes,  and 
that  behind  them  was  some  wild  beast.  It  must  be 
a  cat  of  some  sort, — nothing  else  could  have  got  up 
to  the  rafters,  —  and  some  unpleasant  recollections 
of  former  encounters  with  its  kind  made  me  unwill- 
ing to  give  it  the  first  chance  to  strike. 

My  rifle  stood  in  a  corner;  but  the  ponderous 
Eemington  was  at  my  belt,  and  I  "  turned  loose " 
into  the  darkness  about  those  two  little  balls  of 
angry  fire.  There  was  a  blood-curdling  screech 
and  something  came  crashing  ta  the  floor  and 
began  scrambling  toward  the  window,  evidently 
crippled.  I  pulled  the  trigger  again,  but  there 
was   only  a  dull  click  —  the  wantonly  beheaded 


SKIRTING  THE  ROCKIES  69 

magpies  of  my  afternoon's  careless  practice  were 
avenged. 

But  a  forty-four  makes  a  terrible  shillalah. ;  and 
with  the  crazy  zeal  which  at  times  catches  the  least 
courageous  hunter,  I  clubbed  it  and  "waded  in." 
It  was  rather  a  one-sided  fight,  for  those  blows 
would  have  felled  a  horse.  Once  the  plucky  brute 
caught  the  butt  in  his  teeth  and  raked  my  duck 
coat  with  his  cruel  claws ;  and  both,  as  the  novel- 
ists say,  "will  carry  the  scars  to  their  dying  day." 
At  last  a  lucky  whack  settled  my  unseen  foe,  and  I 
blew  up  the  fire  for  light  on  the  subject.  It  was 
a  wildcat,  as  I  suspected  —  but  such  a  wildcat! 
Though  he  was  now  dead  as  Adam,  his  size  actually 
terrified  me.  Had  I  dreamed  of  his  proportions  I 
would  have  crawled  up  the  chimney  sooner  than 
face  him.  One  who  has  scraped  an  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  the  bob-cats  and  lynxes  of  the 
Maine  forests,  hardly  cares  for  a  hand-to-hand 
struggle  with  a  cat  of  twice  their  size,  and  I  had 
not  then  learned  that  the  Eocky  Mountain  variety, 
though  far  larger,  is  far  more  cowardly.  With  his 
long,  milk-white  teeth,  his  needle-pointed  sickles  of 
claws,  and  his  marvellous  agility  and  muscularity, 
this  fellow  could  have  cleaned  out  a  room  full  of 
men,  armed  how  you  will,  had  he  known  his  talents. 
My  bullet  had  broken  his  right  fore  leg  at  the  shoul- 
der, and  the  first  crack  over  his  head  with  that  trip- 


70    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

hammer  of  a  revolver  practically  settled  the  ques- 
tion. He  brought  me  supper  as  well  as  excitement, 
for  he  had  killed  a  hen.  I  cleaned  and  cooked  the 
aged  bird,  and  chewed  her  tough  tissues  till  nearly 
daylight.  As  for  the  cat,  I  "packed"  him  some 
ten  miles  on  my  shoulders  next  day  for  the  sake  of 
weighing  him ;  and  a  rancher's  scales  showed  him 
up  at  fifty-three  and  a  half  pounds.  His  beautiful 
mottled  hide  still  serves  me  as  a  rug. 

The  night  following,  I  slept  at  a  little  ranch- 
house  in  a  lonely  canon  of  the  Greenhorn  range. 
I  do  not  remember  the  name  of  the  white-haired, 
blind  old  mother  there,  but  her  politics  will  never 
slip  my  recollection.  After  the  humble  breakfast 
in  the  morning  she  had  us  all  upon  our  knees,  and 
uttered  a  prayer  which  I  fancy  no  campaign  since 
has  duplicated.  You  must  remember  that  it  was 
a  fortnight  after  the  presidential  election  of  1884, 
and  the  result  was  still  in  doubt.  After  praying 
for  mankind  in  general,  and  with  a  gentle  mother- 
liness  for  the  stranger  within  their  gates,  she  went 
on  solemnly :  — 

"  We  do  not  know  yet,  O  Lord,  how  the  tide  of 
our  country's  affairs  has  turned,  but  we  fear  those 
nasty  Democrats  have  seized  the  reins  of  government. 
But  we  beseech  thee,  great  Euler,  that  if  it  be  con- 
sistent with  thy  will,  Mr.  Blaine  may  be  our  Presi- 
dent, and  that  wicked  man  Cleveland  be  rebuked  I " 


SKIRTING  THE  ROCKIES  71 

In  these  mountains  I  saw  from  a  distance  the 
famous  Bassick  mine  —  a  characteristic  example  of 
the  irony  which  mocks  the  fortune-seeker.  Years 
ago  a  poor  fellow,  whose  eternal  ill-luck  would  have 
discouraged  Job,  sank  a  big  shaft  there,  and  left 
his  last  nickle  at  the  bottom.  He  never  got  a  cent 
out;  and  drifted  off  into  the  farther  mountains, 
never  to  return.  In  the  little  camp  was  a  penniless 
fellow  who  pottered  around  here  and  there  on 
fruitless  prospecting  tours;  while  his  brave  little 
wife  kept  the  pot  at  a  boil  by  taking  in  washing. 
One  day  he  strolled  into  the  deserted  mine.  The 
frosts  of  two  winters  had  been  gnawing  the  walls, 
and  here  and  there  had  "  stoped  down  "  big  patches. 
The  wanderer  idly  dug  his  pick  into  .the  wall  and 
pried  out  a  yellow  nugget  half  as  big  as  his  fist. 
The  luckless  first  owner  had  burrowed  within  six 
inches  of  the  richest  "  lead  "  in  Colorado ;  and  who 
should  find  the  treasure  but  pauper  Bassick !  That 
afternoon  he  refused  $100,000  for  his  claim,  and 
before  long  the  Bassick  mine  was  "  stocked  up  "  at 
two  millions  and  a  quarter. 

Getting  back  to  the  railroad  fifteen  miles  west 
of  Pueblo,  I  found  adversity.  It  was  late  at  night, 
bitter  cold,  and  my  clothing  was  wet  from  fording 
the  river,  r  A  couple  of  American  houses  refused 
to  open  to  me,  fearing  a  "  hold  up,"  and  I  should 
have  frozen  but  for  the  kindness  of  some  rough, 


72  A  TRAIVIP  ACROSS   THE  CONTINENT 

ignorant  Italian  laborers  who  occupied  an  open, 
stoveless  box  car.  One  of  them,  after  talking  with 
me  awhile,  said :  "  Me  no  hava  except  three  blanket 
—  give-a  you  two ''  —  and  so  he  did,  himself  crawl- 
ing in  between  two  companions  to  keep  from  freez- 
ing. It  was  the  first  time  I  had  met  churlish 
treatment,  and  the  simple  humanity  of  my  unknown 
Italian  friend  shone  in  creditable  contrast  with  the 
coarse  selfishness  of  "his  betters." 

It  was  section  supper  time  as  I  strode  up  to  the 
section-house  at  San  Carlos,  and  the  men  were  just 
lifting  the  hand-car  from  the  track.  A  beautiful 
young  greyhound  flew  out  at  me  savagely ;  one  of 
the  laborers  gave  him  a  curse  and  a  lift  with  his 
heavy  brogan.  The  dog  had  been  left  there  friend- 
less at  the  death  of  his  master.  If  I  wanted  him 
I  could  have  him.  Of  course  I  wanted  him;  he 
was  too  young  and  handsome  and  spirited  to  be 
left  to  the  abuse  of  those  two-legged  brutes.  How 
little  I  dreamed  then  what  that  careless  mercy 
meant  —  of  the  pleasures,  the  privations,  and  the 
deadly  dangers  we  were  to  go  through  together, 
this  slender  black  dog  and  I ;  or  of  the  awful  expe- 
rience that  was  to  mark  our  parting,  and  leave 
with  me  some  of  the  brightest  and  some  of  the 
saddest  memories  of  a  crowded  life. 

He  was  wild  as  a  deer,  used  only  to  starvation 
and  brutal  blows,  but  a  fine  specimen  of  his  blood. 


SKIRTIKG   THE  ROCKIES  73 

It  was  a  scant  and  dirty  supper  that  evening,  but  I 
saved  half  of  it  in  a  paper  and  came  out  to  begin 
my  fight  for  friendship.  Starved  as  he  was,  it 
took  an  hour's  patient  diplomacy  to  lure  him  into 
the  bunk-house,  where  we  presently  established 
a  trembling  confidence.  Next  morning  the  men 
helped  me  to  catch  and  tie  him  after  a  wild  melee, 
in  which  several  of  us  were  bitten,  and  then  I  had 
an  hour  of  real  battle  before  he  would  lead  —  now 
holding  the  rope  against  his  frantic  struggles  to 
escape,  and  now  swinging  off  his  savage  and 
despairing  rushes  at  me.  At  last  his  dog-sense 
triumphed,  and  he  followed  peaceably  but  shiver- 
ing. "  Shadow "  was  his  name  thenceforth,  and 
he  was  the  truest  shadow  that  ever  followed.  Two 
hours  later  he  did  me  the  only  ill-turn  of  his  faith- 
ful young  life.  Coming  around  a  spur  I  found 
myself  within  a  hundred  feet  of  four  fat  antelope. 
But  just  as  I  pulled  trigger.  Shadow  saw  them  too, 
and  made  a  terrified  leap  aside.  His  cord  was  tied 
to  my  wrist,  and  he  jerked  the  rifle  so  that  the 
ball  struck  a  hundred  yards  from  aim.  I  had  still 
time  to  drop  one  or  two  of  the  antelope  as  they  ran 
straight  from  me,  but  doubly  frightened  at  the  report, 
the  poor  pup  kept  up  such  a  dancing  and  howling  at 
the  end  of  his  rope  that  I  had  to  give  it  up.  And  so, 
empty-handed  and  footsore,  we  came  late  to  the 
town  of  Spoons  —  the  Mexican  hamlet  of  Cucharas. 


VI 

OVER  THE  DIVIDE 

Scaling  the  Rockies.  —  The  Trapper  in  Buckskin.  —  Looking 
down  the  Muzzle  of  a  Forty-four.  —  A  Starving  Feast 
on  Prairie-dog.  —  Chased  by  a  Cougar.  —  Shooting  around 
a  Comer. 

Fob  more  than  fifty  miles  I  had  been  walking 
without  apparent  effect  straight  at  two  great  blue 
islands  that  rose  from  the  level  distance  of  the 
plains.  They  were  the  Spanish  Peaks,  lonely  and 
glorious  outposts  of  the  superb  Sangre  de  Cristo 
range.  Under  their  shadows  we  stepped  into  a 
civilization  that  was  then  new  to  me  —  that  of  the 
swarthy  Mexicans  and  their  quaint  adobe  houses, 
with  regiments  of  mongrel  curs  and  flocks  of 
silken-haired  Angora  goats.  I  was  very  suspicious 
of  the  people, —  a  foolishness  which  long  subse- 
quent dwelling  among  them  removed, — and  Shadow 
shared  my  distrust  of  the  much  more  numerous 
canine  population.  We  steered  clear  of  all  the 
houses,  and  several  times  went  hungry  for  our 
74 


OVER  THE  DIVIDB  75 

folly.  Why  is  it  that  the  last  and  most  difficult 
education  seems  to  be  the  ridding  ourselves  of  the 
silly  inborn  race  prejudice  ?  "We  all  start  with  it, 
we  few  of  us  graduate  from  it.  And  yet  the  clear- 
est thing  in  the  world  to  him  who  has  eyes  and  a 
chance  to  use  them,  is  that  men  everywhere  — 
white  men,  brown  men,  yellow  men,  black  men  — 
are  all  just  about  the  same  thing.  The  difference 
is  little  deeper  than  the  skin. 

In  Colorado  the  Mexicans  are  much  in  the  mi- 
nority, and  are  frequently  nicknamed  "  greasers ''  — 
a  nomenclature  which  it  is  not  wise  to  practise  as 
one  proceeds  south,  and  which  anyway  is  born  of 
an  unbred  boorishness  of  which  no  Mexican  could 
ever  be  guilty.  They  are  a  simple,  kindly  people, 
ignorant  of  books,  but  better  taught  than  our  own 
average  in  all  the  social  virtues  —  in  hospitality, 
courtesy,  and  respect  for  age.  They  are  neither  so 
"  cowardly  "  nor  so  "  treacherous  "  as  an  enormous 
class  that  largely  shapes  our  national  destinies; 
and  it  would  be  a  thorn  to  our  'conceit,  if  we  could 
realize  how  very  many  important  lessons  we  could 
profitably  learn  from  them.  I  speak  now  from 
years  of  intimate,  but  honorable,  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  them  —  an  acquaintance  which  has 
shamed  me  out  of  the  silly  prejudices  against  them 
which  I  shared  with  the  average  Saxon.  I  know 
their  good  and  their  bad ;  I  know  the  taste  of  their 


76    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

midnight  buckshot  as  well  as  can  any  man  of  pene- 
trable tissues ;  but  the  individual  is  not  the  race  — 
and  the  Mexican  race  is  worthy  every  manly  man's 
respect. 

But  now  they  were  very  new  to  me,  and  very 
suspicious,  and  their  quaint  plazas  were  full  of 
interest.  The  first  we  encountered  was  on  the 
willowy  banks  of  Cucharas  Creek.  It  was  a  village 
in  one  piece  —  a  long,  rambling,  many-roomed  shed 
of  apparent  mud,  ten  feet  high,  and  several  hun- 
dred in  length.  The  building  was  what  is  tech- 
nically known  in  the  Southwest  as  a  jacal,  as 
contradistinguished  from  the  commoner  and  firmer 
house  built  of  sun-dried  adobe  bricks  in  regular 
masonry.  The  jacal  is  made  by  setting  a  palisade 
around  the  space  desired  to  be  housed,  roofing  it 
with  poles,  straw,  and  dirt,  and  chinking  the  cracks 
between  the  upright  logs  with  adobe  mud. 

After  a  day's  plodding  through  the  little  valley 
lined  with  the  flat  Mexican  settlements,  we  started 
early  one  icy  morning  to  scale  the  backbone  of  the 
continent,  a  few  miles  south  of  Veta  Pass.  There 
were  thirteen  miles  of  very  precipitous  climbing, 
and  toward  the  top  of  Middle  Creek  Pass  we  came 
near  congealing  as  the  savage  wind  poured  down 
upon  us  like  an  avalanche  of  ice-water.  On  the 
summit  of  the  Rockies  we  had  to  wade  several 
miles  in  the  teeth  of  a  fierce  snow  squall  and  were 


OVEB  THE  DIVIDE  77 

glad  enough  to  get  down  into  the  sheltering  trough 
of  Wagon  Creek.  Half  way  up  the  mountain  I 
had  for  the  first  time  released  Shadow  from  his 
leading  string,  and  he  verified  his  name  by  tagging 
along  at  my  heels  in  solemn  gratitude.  He  was 
very  subdued  for  a  four  months'  P^PPJ  —  t^e 
shadow  of  the  old  brutalities  had  not  yet  lifted 
from  his  sky,  and  he  crept  up  to  me  shivering 
to  enjoy  with  fear  the  first  caress  he  had  ever 
known. 

It  began  to  look  as  if  we  were  to  sleep  out  in 
that  pitiless  weather.  A  snowy  ermine  scurrying 
across  the  ice-bound  brook  was  the  only  token  of 
life.  But  just  at  dark  we  were  relieved  by  seeing 
the  smoke  curling  from  a  log  cabin  against  the 
wooded  hillside.  The  sole  occupant,  a  frayed  old 
prospector,  welcomed  us  cordially;  and  while  he 
chopped  up  a  dead  pine  he  had  dragged  down  the 
hill,  I  cooked  supper  in  the  rude  adobe  fire-place. 
Good  "  frying-pan  bread,''  fried  pork,  coffee,  and  a 
can  of  beans  from  my  pocket,  made  a  feast  to 
which  we  all  did  full  justice.  Then  there  came  a 
deep  mellow  voice  outside ;  and  in  a  moment  en- 
tered a  sturdy  hunter,  clad  in  fringed  buckskin 
from  head  to  foot. 

A  wanderer  from  Plymouth  Rock,  I  decided  at 
once ;  and  so  he  was.  He  need  hardly  have  told 
me  —  his  attentions  to  the  bean-can  were  enough. 


78  A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

Wide  though  the  Yankee  wanders,  he  never  forgets 
his  motto  —  Uhi  bean,  ihi  patria.  He  was  a  rarely 
interesting  specimen  of  manhood,  this  Lora  Wash- 
burn ;  and  among  the  pleasantest  memories  of  the 
whole  tramp  are  those  of  the  two  days  passed  in 
his  company.  Of  medium  height,  a  form  whose 
every  line  bespoke  extraordinary  strength  and  agil- 
ity, a  face  of  manly  clearness,  a  manner  quiet  and 
modest,  he  was  good  to  look  at  in  his  picturesque 
garb,  and  better  still  to  listen  to. 

In  the  morning,  after  breakfast,  we  made  an 
inspection  of  the  old  man's  iron  mines — a  huge 
"hogback"  sixty  feet  wide  and  several  hundred 
yards  long  of  solid,  black  malleable  metal.  But 
here,  as  everywhere  else  in  the  West,  was  the 
irrepressible  conflict.  Whether  we  met  the  farmer 
"  under ''  the  great  irrigating  ditches,  or  the  small 
cattle-rancher,  or  the  lone  prospector,  they  all 
had  the  same  story.  It  was  the  Western  game 
applied  to  life — a  financial  freeze-out.  Great  com- 
panies owned  the  canals,  and  most  of  the  crops 
went  for  water-rentals.  Syndicates  bought  and 
fenced  the  rare  springs  and  water-pockets,  and  the 
small  man's  cattle  could  die  of  thirst.  It  is  little 
wonder  that  to  this  day  there  are  "  fence-cutting  " 
wars  on  a  scale  that  would  astound  the  East.  Land 
is  worth  nothing  in  nine-tenths  of  the  Southwest  — 
it  is  water  that  counts.     The  wealthy  men  who  get 


OVER  THE  DIVIDE  79 

a  spring  command  the  range  sometimes  for  a  thou- 
sand square  miles — as  far  as  their  cattle  can  rove 
from  water,  and  get  back  again  alive  —  and  they 
gird  this  huge,  unbought  domain  with  barbed  wire. 
But  the  day  of  the  fence  is  past.  I  can  lead  you 
along  fifty  miles  apiece  of  more  than  one  fence, 
lined  on  the  outside  with  the  bleached  bones  of 
the  poor  man's  cattle.  But  the  fifty  miles  of  wire 
have  gone  down  in  a  night.  Their  chopped  strands 
lie  where  they  fell ;  of  their  posts  remains  but  a  line 
of  little  ash-hillocks ;  and  they  never  will  be  rebuilt ! 
As  to  the  lone  miner  who  "  strikes  it,"  he  is  other- 
wise "  frozen  out/'  In  addition  to  its  modest  ten 
cents  a  mile  fare,  the  railroad  erects  equally  monu- 
mental freight-rates  —  which  are  a  prohibition  on 
the  shipping  of  ore  —  until  the  miner  gets  tired 
and  the  railroad  gets  the  mine  for  a  song,  and 
sings  it  itself.  These  are  no  anarchistic  fancies, 
but  cold  facts  in  a  large  part  of  the  West  —  facts 
which  statecraft  would  better  face  manfully  than 
laugh  down  until  some  day  they  shall  remedy 
themselves  after  the  unpleasant  fashion  of  forces 
that  are  denied  an  outlet. 

It  was  still  early  when  Lora  and  Shadow  and  I 
started  down  the  old  government  trail  at  a  lively 
pace.  He  was  the  only  live,  real  walker  I  met  on 
the  whole  long  journey,  and  there  was  a  keen  zest 
in  reeling  off  the  frosty  miles  with  such  a  compan- 


80    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

ion  —  and  with  some  of  the  noblest  scenery  in  the 
world  about  us.  In  front  was  the  lovely  San  Luis 
Valley ;  behind,  Veta  and  its  smaller  brethren,  and 
at  our  right  the  stupendous  bulk  of  Sierra  Blanca, 
tallest  and  noblest  of  all  Colorado's  congress  of 
Titans.  As  for  Shadow,  he  seemed  to  feel  the 
exhilaration,  too,  and  kept  us  in  a  roar  with  frantic 
but  unavailing  pursuit  of  his  first  jackrabbits 
The  weather  turned  ugly,  and  a  spiteful  sleet 
pelted  our  faces  ;  but  Washburn's  modest  reminis- 
cences made  the  way  short.  Almost  before  we 
knew  it,  we  had  passed  deserted  Fort  Garland  and 
came  in  sight  of  an  ancient  adobe  hut  on  the  banks 
of  Trincheras  Creek.  Here  we  met  the  trapper's 
brother,  a  sawed-off  Hercules  not  over  five  feet  in 
height,  but  enormously  powerful  in  chest  and 
shoulders.  He  was  sauntering  easily  along  with 
the  king  of  all  antelopes  upon  his  shoulders,  as 
though  its  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  had  been 
a  pillow.  We  went  into  camp  together,  and  ate 
and  smoked  and  talked  far  into  the  night,  and  then 
rolled  off  to  sleep  under  the  heavy  wagon  sheet. 
Around  the  walls  hung  queer,  round,  shield-like 
affairs,  looking  worthless  enough,  but  each  stand- 
ing for  eight  or  nine  dollars  even  in  that  market  — 
for  they  were  all  prime  beaver-skins.  The  animal 
has  to  be  skinned  so  as  to  make  the  pelt  circular, 
in  order  to  preserve  its  full  value  j  and  these  furry 


OVEK  THE  DIVIDE  81 

disks,  some  three  feet  in  diameter,  are  bound  to 
willow  hoops  to  dry.  In  those  days  the  creek  all 
along  those  meadows  was  full  of  quiet  ponds  and 
substantial  dams  built  by  these  wonderful  four- 
footed  engineers.  They  can  generally  fell  a  tree, 
a  foot  through,  as  exactly  to  the  desired  line  as 
could  any  old  lumberman,  but  should  the  tree 
chance  to  fall  wrong,  they  leave  it  and  attack  an- 
other. I  have  known  no  pleasanter  days  than  the 
many  spent  in  spying  upon  the  work  of  a  beaver 
colony  as  the  voiceless  artisans  dam  running 
streams,  cut  the  green  clubs  for  their  winter  food, 
or  mud-plaster  the  roofs  of  their  conical  lodges 
with  their  trowel  tails. 

Washburn  had  run  away  from  his  Cape  Cod 
home  at  sixteen,  and  shipped  before  the  mast  on  a 
New  Bedford  whaler,  cruising  from  Arctic  floes  to 
tropic  seaweed.  Then  he  was  second  mate  on  a 
San  Francisco  schooner,  and  threw  up  that  berth  to 
follow  a  gold  excitement.  He  was  by  turns  hunter, 
scout  in  the  deadly  Sioux  wars  of  1876,  and  miner, 
and  at  last  with  his  brother  Carroll  went  to  trapping 
beaver,  otter,  bear,  etc.,  for  pelt  or  bounty,  in  the 
fur  season,  and  mining  in  the  summer.  He  had 
lived  a  good  deal  more  in  his  thirty-five  years  than 
a  hundred  average  existers  do  in  a  lifetime,  and 
was  as  modest  about  it  all  as  though  his  most 
startling  adventures  had  been  the  common  experi- 


82    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

ence  of  mankind.  One  of  his  bear  stories — wormed 
out  of  him  with  considerable  difficulty  —  is  illus- 
trative of  how  hard  the  professional  hunter  earns 
his  money. 

"I  was  trapping  in  the  Little  Rockies  back  in 
187-,"  said  he,  in  his  deep  chest-tones,  "and  tak- 
ing out  a  good  many  beaver.  One  day  I  wounded 
an  old  she  grisly,  breaking  her  fore  paw,  but  didn^t 
get  her.  Two  or  three  days  later,  I  ran  across  her 
den  in  a  deep  canon  —  a  sort  of  natural  cave.  At 
its  mouth  the  hole  was  too  low  to  walk  into,  and  I 
had  to  crawl  in  on  hands  and  knees ;  but  a  few  feet 
along  it  opened  up  into  a  high  chamber.  Away  at 
the  far  end,  something  like  forty  feet  from  me,  I 
could  see  where  the  nest  was,  down  a  few  feet  below 
the  general  level  of  the  cave ;  but  the  brutes  were 
lying  low,  growling  away  in  the  dark,  and  wouldn't 
come  out.  Presently  a  cub  lifted  his  head  above 
the  edge  of  the  nest.  I  was  waiting  for  him,  and 
he  fell  back  with  a  ball  through  his  brain  from  my 
buffalo  gun  —  a  Sharpe,  fifty  calibre,  and  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  grains  of  powder.  By  and  by 
up  came  another  cub,  and  down  he  went ;  and  then 
another.  But  the  old  she  wouldn't  raise,  but  kept 
close,  growling  among  her  dead  like  distant  thun- 
der. I  threw  rocks  in  on  her,  and  she  would  snarl 
and  move,  but  never  expose  her  head.  At  last  I 
got  sick  of  that  and  thought  to  myself,  *  Well,  old 


OVER  THE  DIVIDE  83 

girl,  if  you  won't  come  my  way  FU  have  to  come 
yours.'  So  I  stuck  my  pine  torch  in  a  crack  above 
my  head,  and  stood  up  on  ray  feet.  Then  I  could 
see  into  the  nest,  but  it  was  just  a  mass  of  fur,  and 
I  couldn't  tell  t'other  from  which,  for  the  old  one 
had  her  head  down  among  her  cubs.  Well,  I 
couldn't  afford  to  wound  her,  and  it  wasn't  a  very 
rich  light  to  shoot  by,  but  I  was  bound  to  have  her. 
So  I  threw  the  cocked  rifle  to  my  shoulder  with  my 
right  hand,  and  with  the  left  tossed  a  boulder  into 
the  nest.  I  saw  the  great  head  lift  slowly  from  the 
mass  and  wave  from  side  to  side  in  ugly  style,  and 
before  it  could  drop  back  there  was  a  chunk  of  lead 
buried  in  it,  and  I  was  flying  down  the  canon. 
Finding  that  she  didn't  follow,  I  went  back  to 
the  hole  and  crawled  in,  clutching  the  old  Sharpe 
tightly.  But  it  wasn't  much  fun  to  tackle  that 
nest.  All  was  quiet  in  it,  but  that  didn't  signify 
anything.  A  wounded  bear  is  a  devilish  brute,  and 
a  foxy  one,  and  nothing  was  likelier  than  that  she 
was  just  laying  for  me.  So  I  stood  there  for  quar- 
ter of  an  hour  chucking  over  into  that  nest  the 
biggest  rocks  I  could  get  hold  of,  always  with  the 
rifle  at  a  ready.  Then,  as  there  was  no  stir,  I  ven- 
tured up  and  found  them  all  stone  dead  —  the  old 
she  and  three  cubs,  and  dragged  them  out  into  the 
canon.  Yes,  she  was  a  pretty  big  one  —  nigh  onto 
ten  hundred."     That  is  one  of  the  stories  Lora  told 


S4  A  TBAMP  ACROSS  THE  COKTINENl? 

me  by  the  dancing  firelight,  as  simply  and  unaffect. 
edly  as  if  it  had  been  a  trifle.  It  was  impossible 
to  look  into  the  narrator's  clear,  manly  eyes  and 
doubt  the  truth  of  a  word.  It  seems  a  pity,  any- 
how, that  we  get  into  this  habit  of  deeming  every 
man  a  liar  just  because  he  has  seen  and  done  more 
in  the  world  than  our  narrow  lives  take  in.  It 
does  not  follow,  simply  because  we  are  timid  stay- 
at-homes,  in  a  tame  country,  that  every  one  else 
has  had  as  dull  an  existence  as  ours. 

Leaving  the  two  manly  trappers  next  morning 
with  hearty  regret,  Shadow  and  I  tramped  off  across 
the  plains,  suffering  much  from  the  cacti,  which 
filled  the  poor  dog's  feet  with  their  agonizing 
needles  and  kept  me  busy  relieving  his  involuntary 
pincushions.  At  Alamosa  we  regained  the  railroad 
and  found  a  landlord  who  charged  me  full  hotel 
rates  for  Shadow.  It  is  pleasant  to  remember  that 
he  may  still  be  charging;  for  in  the  short  argument 
which  followed  the  presentation  of  his  bill,  my 
logic  was  prior  and  therefore  convincing. 

Here  we  crossed  the  Rio  Grande,  there  a  beauti- 
ful mountain  stream,  unspoiled  by  the  roily  rivers 
and  irrigating  ditches  of  its.  lower  course.  A  few 
miles  south  I  found  great  areas  peppered  with 
curious  volcanic  pebbles,  among  which  I  gathered 
many  beautiful  nuggets  of  moss  agate  and  chalce- 
dony, with  five  poor  opals.     This  interesting  sort 


OYER  THE  DIVIDE  85 

of  gravel  spoiled  speed  j  and  we  were  two  days  in 
getting  twenty  miles  to  Antonito.  There  I  sat 
down  in  the  telegraph  office  to  catch  up  with  my 
correspondence.  A  sudden  disturbance  caused  me 
to  look  up.  A  big,  well-dressed  man  stood  four 
feet  from  me;  and  in  front  of  him  was  a  short, 
tough-faced  desperado  shoving  the  cold  muzzle  of  a 
forty-four  under  his  nose,  and  cursing  him  with 
indescribable  fluency.  The  big  man,  who  was  white 
as  a  sheet,  did  not  look  to  me  thick  enough  to  stop 
a  bullet  at  such  short  range ;  and  the  hundred-ton 
cannon  I  have  seen  never  looked  half  as  big  or  ugly 
as  that  miserable  blue-steel  bore  which  was  peering 
straight  at  me.  I  felt  sure  that  if  that  horny  finger 
put  a  hair's  weight  more  upon  the  trigger  the  big 
man  was  not  the  only  one  who  would  get  hurt.  I 
have  sometimes  had  to  look  these  gift-horses  in  the 
mouth,  but  it  is  different  when  they  are  personal  — 
there  is  an  endurable  excitement  then.  But  it  is 
always  a  doubly  unsatisfactory  business  intercept- 
ing other  people's  messages;  and  in  this  punctil- 
ious country  should  be  particularly  avoided.  I 
didn't  know  the  fellow;  and  if  I  were  to  go  to 
stopping  bullets  which  were  not  meant  for  me,  he 
might  take  it  as  an  impertinence.  So,  sooner  than 
meddle,  I  modestly  sidled  out  of  range ;  while  the 
gentleman  with  the  advantage  continued  his  exhor- 
tation.    "  You'll  do  me  up,  will  you  ?  "  he  reiter- 


86    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

ated.  "IVe  heard  what  you  talked  about  me. 
You  lie  —  you  did !  I've  got  a  good  mind  to  kill 
you  anyhow,  just  for  luck.  Yes ''  —  as  the  victim 
moved  as  if  for  the  weapon  I  could  see  bulging  his 
coat-tails  —  "  you  make  a  break  to  pull  on  me,  and 
I'll  pump  enough  lead  into  you  to  patch  a  mile  of 
hell!'' 

But  at  last  the  big  man  begged  off  so  piteously 
that  he  was  allowed  to  depart  on  an  opportune 
train;  and  the  aggressor  disappeared  across  the 
street.  "  Who's  the  man  with  the  gun  ?  "  I  asked 
the  quiet  agent. 

"  Him  ?  Oh,  he's  Meyers.  Keeps  yan  saloon. 
He's  constable  —  been  constable  four  years  now." 

"Guess  he  didn't  want  to  shoot  very  bad?"  I 
ventured,  feeling  much  better  since  emerging  from 
temporary  retirement. 

"  Don't  you  fool  yourself !  Meyers'd  jest  as  soon 
shoot  as  eat.  He's  killed  more'n  one  —  that's 
what  he's  constable  fer.  We  hef  to  hev'  a  pretty 
tough  man  fer  constable  down  yer.  Ef  Dalton 
hadn't  'a'  kep'  up  his  hands,  you'd  'a'  seen  some 
fun  —  but  Meyers  couldn't  shoot  no  man  with  his 
hands  up." 

My  sleeping-bag  on  the  board  floor  of  the  "  hotel " 
was  my  bed  that  night,  and  my  pebble-laden  duck 
coat  my  pillow;  while  two  other  guests  divided 
their  night-long  attention  between  me  and  their 


OF  TM« 

OVER  THE  DIVIDB  |  'D?f IVERS! 

delirium  tremens.  With  the  exception  of  theif 
ravings  the  accommodations  were  a  fair  sample  of 
what  I  was  to  have  in  seven  cases  out  of  ten 
through  the  fifteen  hundred  remaining  miles  of  the 
tramp. 

Five  miles  south  of  Antonito  stands  the  stone 
post  which  marks  the  State  line,  and  with  one  step 
beyond  it  we  were  upon  the  there  unprepossessing 
soil  of  New  Mexico.  The  whole  country  was  now 
wildly  volcanic,  blanketed  with  great  lava  flows 
and  strewn  with  lava  blocks.  A  bitter  head  wind 
buffeted  us  all  day,  filling  eyes,  nostrils,  and  lungs 
with  the  fearful  alkali  dust  which  makes  life  a 
burden.  Thirty  miles  of  that  sort  of  thing  made  a 
hard  day's  work,  and  we  were  more  than  content 
to  reach  the  lone  section-house  at  No  Agua  ("No 

Water"). 

The  ground  was  lost  under  six  inches  of  snow 
when  we  rose  in  the  morning,  and  the  storm  con- 
tinued savagely  all  day.  By  night  it  was  hard 
wading,  and  we  were  pretty  well  tired  out  by  the 
time  we  reached  Servilleta  —  so  the  railroad  spells 
it ;  it  should  be  Cebollita.  The  snow  largely  left 
us  next  day,  and  in  the  afternoon  I  wounded  a 
deer  by  a  snap  shot.  We  followed  his  blood-dotted 
trail  for  ten  miles  and  then  had  to  give  it  up. 
Cold,  famished,  without  food  or  water,  night  not 
far,  but  the  nearest  house  fifteen  miles  away,  I 


88  A  TRAMP   ACROSS   THE   COJSTINEIS'T 

began  to  anticipate  a  sorry  night.  By  the  greatest 
good  luck,  a  belated  prairie-dog  sat  upon  his  burrow- 
to  watch  us,  and  a  ball  cut  off  his  head.  We  got 
back  at  last  to  the  railroad,  where  I  found  a  bat- 
tered powder-can,  and  with  snow  from  a  shady 
ravine  parboiled  my  game  therein,  afterward  roast- 
ing him  at  a  camp-fire.  He  was  rank,  and  covered 
with  greasewood  ashes,  but  no  meal  ever  tasted 
sweeter  to  me  —  and  Shadow  was  equally  pleased 
with  his  share.  That  gave  us  strength  to  push  on 
to  Barranca,  where  a  late  but  hearty  supper  at  the 
section-house  —  which,  as  at  most  of  these  places, 
comprised  the  entire  "town"  —  fully  revived  us. 
There  was  glorious  moonlight,  and  despite  the 
hard  pull  of  the  day  I  decided  to  keep  on  to  Em- 
budo,  seven  miles  below.  Just  south  of  Barranca 
the  track  suddenly  pitches  off  the  edge  of  the  high 
plateaus,  and  for  eight  miles  tumbles  down  a  wind- 
ing canon  with  a  grade  of  two  hundred  feet  to  the 
mile.  We  trotted  swiftly  and  in  high  spirits  down 
the  steep  slope,  now  in  the  clear  moonlight,  and 
now  in  deep  shadow.  But  just  as  my  ears  caught 
the  hoarse  roar  of  the  boulder-fretted  river  to  the 
bottom  of  whose  wild  gorge  we  were  fast  coming, 
my  spirits  and  my  poise  were  simultaneously  upset 
by  Shadow,  who  bolted  between  my  very  legs  from 
behind.  When  I  recovered  my  feet  and  looked 
back  for  the  cause  of  his  fright  I  saw  that  he  had 


OVER  THE  DIVIDE  89 

"come  into  camp"  none  too  soon.  Twenty  feet 
behind  us  a  huge  mountain  lion  was  crouching  in 
the  middle  of  the  track.  I  could  even  hear  his  long 
tail  thumping  against  the  ties.  The  rifle  went  to 
my  shoulder  like  lightning ;  but  there  in  the  dark- 
ness of  the  deep  cut  I  could  not  even  see  the  sights. 
It  was  one  of  the  hardest  moments  I  ever  went 
through — not  for  fear,  for  I  knew  the  great  brute 
would  not  attack  me  unless  cornered ;  but  because 
here  was  the  game  I  wanted  most  of  all  and  every 
drop  of  hunter  blood  in  me  was  tingling  for  him. 
But  it  was  a  thousand  to  one  against  a  fatal  shot 
in  that  light ;  and  once  wounded,  I  needed  no  tell- 
ing what  he  would  do.  For  what  seemed  hours  I 
stood  with  finger  trembling  on  the  trigger;  and 
then  the  great  cat  gave  a  frightful  leap  up  the  side 
of  the  cut,  and  disappeared  in  the  bushes.  But 
poor  Shadow,  who  had  been  whining  and  cowering 
against  me  in  mortal  terror,  did  not  easily  forget 
that  shock,  and  all  the  night  upon  the  rough  plank 
floor  at  Embudo  he  moaned  and  shivered  in  my 
arms. 

For  several  miles  below  Embudo  ("  the  funnel ") 
the  Eio  Grande  pours  through  a  curious,  narrow 
little  canon  which  fully  justifies  its  name,  and  then 
glides  out  into  a  pretty,  widening  valley,  dotted  with 
frequent  and  contented  Mexican  plazas  of  a  very 
different  type  from  those  we  had  seen  in  Colorado. 


90  A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

There  were  wee  peach  orchards  and  tiny  gardens, 
each  inclosed  by  a  breast-high  adobe  wall,  and  neat 
adobe  houses  under  the  giant  cottonwoods,  and  cat- 
tle and  burros  grazing  the  brown  meadows,  and 
primitive  little  mills,  and  now  and  then  there  came 
the  greaseless  shriek  of  old  carretas  —  clumsy  carts 
whose  wheels  were  carved  in  one  block  from  cross- 
sections  of  huge  sycamores,  and  without  hub,  spokes, 
or  tires. 

In  front  of  one  of  these  quiet  hamlets  I  met 
a  gambler-looking  fellow  driving  two  handsome 
horses  to  a  buckboard.  He  was  well-dressed,  fat, 
and  evidently  full  of  coarse  good  humor  with  him- 
self and  the  world.  He  pulled  up  and  began  to 
quiz  me  in  an  impudent  way  that  made  my  fingers 
grow  warm,  though  I  held  my  temper. 

^^  Say,  pardner,"  he  chuckled,  "  thet  blunderbuss 
o'  yourn  don't  look  like  't  'd  shoot  nothin\  Wot'll 
you  take  fur  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,"  I  answered  carelessly,  but  resenting  the 
slur  on  a  trusty  weapon,  "  I'll  trade  even  for  your 
mouth  —  that  ought  to  kill  at  a  mile,  and  the  rifle's 
good  for  only  five  hundred  yards." 

"  Sorto'  smart  to-day,  ain't  yo '  ?  Tell  yo'  wot 
I'll  do.  I'll  put  up  this  yer  hat  inside  o'  fifty 
yards,  and  bet  yo'  a  dollar  yo'  can't  hit  it  fr'm 
whar  yo'  stand." 

By  this  time  I  was  getting  warm  enough  to  pick 


OVER   THE  DIVroB  91 

him  up  at  his  own  game,  and  retorted,  "  Done !  Put 
up  your  hat." 

He  took  off  his  handsome  new  silk  "tile,"  walked 
forty  yards  or  so  toward  the  river,  and  set  it  down 
— behind  the  stump  of  a  big  cottonwood.  "Shoot 
away.  Cap ! "  he  laughed  maliciously.  I  was  literally 
"stumped,"  and  was  just  about  to  give  in  when  a 
glitter  over  against  an  adobe  wall  caught  my  eye. 

"Say,  how  many  shots  will  you  give  me  from 
here?" 

"Oh,  all  yo'  want,"  he  chuckled. 

I  marked  the  spot,  walked  over  to  the  adobe  and 
picked  up  the  steel  plough  which  had  attracted 
my  attention.  Carrying  it  past  the  now  puzzled 
sharper,  I  set  it  down  beside  the  stump,  turning  the 
share  up  at  what  I  guessed  to  be  about  the  proper 
angle.  My  new  acquaintance  now  saw  the  point 
and  made  a  vigorous  protest.  He  was  going  down 
to  remove  the  hat ;  but  the  rifle  was  in  my  hands, 
and  I  convinced  him  that  as  he  had  had  his  laugh 
it  would  not  be  wise  to  interfere  with  mine.  I 
came  back  to  the  mark,  took  careful  aim  and  fired 
— no  score.  Twice  I  went  down  and  shifted  the 
plough,  always  keeping  the  rifle  in  hand — for  the 
gambler  had  a  very  unpleasant  look,  and  there  was 
a  tell-tale  lump  under  his  coat.  The  third  ball 
struck  the  curving  share  midway,  glanced  along 
its  polished  surface,  and  in  a  flattened  mass  struck 


92  A  TRAMP   ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

that  $12  hat  amidships,  and  made  an  utter  wreck 
of  it. 

"Now,"  I  said  to  the  discomfited  sharper,  "I  don't 
want  your  dollar,  for  I  think  you  stole  it.  But  let 
me  give  you  a  pointer.  Next  time  you  go  fishing 
for  suckers,  don't  throw  your  hook  in  Yankee 
waters." 

"I'll  be  blanked  if  I  do,  young  feller,"  he  ex- 
claimed bitterly ;  and  in  five  minutes  he  was  gone 
in  a  cloud  of  dust,  the  tatters  of  the  hat  on  his 
pomatumed  head. 

With  pleasant  stops  at  here  and  there  a  hospit- 
able Mexican  house — for  I  was  losing  my  imbecile 
suspicions — we  came  at  last  to  Espanola,  then  the 
end  of  the  miserable  little  narrow-gauge  railroad. 
Here  we  crossed  the  Eio  Grande  on  a  crazy  bridge ; 
and  after  seven  miles  down  the  valley  came  to  the 
pretty  Pueblo  Indian  town  of  San  Ildefonso,  where 
we  were  very  courteously  treated  by  old  Alonzo, 
governor  of  that  strange  little  aboriginal  republic, 
and  slept  on  wee  wool  mattresses  upon  the  adobe 
floor  in  the  midst  of  the  Indian  family. 


VII 

THE  LAND  OF  THE  ADOBE 

Among  the  Pueblos.  —  The  Hero-missionaries  and  their 
Work.  —  Lost  on  the  Mesas.  —  Ancient  Santa  F6.  — 
Miles  of  Gold-thread.  —  A  Romantic  History.  —  Indian 
Letter-writers.  —  The  Village  of  Tesuque. 

It  pleases  me  to  remember  how  that,  my  first 
introduction  to  the  Pueblo  Indians,  impressed  me ; 
for  now  I  have  lived  for  four  years  among  them  in 
one  of  their  own  houses,  in  one  of  their  own  towns, 
and  with  them  as  my  almost  sole  neighbors,  and 
they  seem  like  lifelong  friends.  But  then  they 
were  new  to  me  in  every  detail,  and  it  filled  me 
with  astonishment  to  find  Indians  who  dwelt  in 
excellent  houses,  with  comfortable  furniture  and 
clean  beds,  and  clothing  and  food;  Indians  who 
were  as  industrious  as  any  class  in  the  country,  and 
tilled  pretty  farms,  and  had  churches  of  their  own 
building,  and  who  learned  none  of  these  things 
from  us,  but  were  living,  thus  before  our  Saxon 
forefathers  had  found  so  much  as  the  shore  of  Kew 

93 


94  .   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

England.  The  old  governor,  my  host,  was  courtesy 
itself,  and  entertained  me  very  ably,  though  at 
disadvantage,  for  my  struggles  with  Spanish  in 
those  days  were,  for  grace  and  comfort,  something 
like  the  Scottish  minister's  definition  of  a  "phe- 
nomenon " :  "A  cow  ye  know,  and  that  is  not  a 
phenomenon ;  and  an  apple  tree  ye  know,  and  that 
is  not  a  phenomenon,  but  when  ye  see  the  cow 
climbing  the  apple  tree,  tail  first,  that  is  a  phe- 
nomenon ! " 

San  Ildefonso  is  one  of  the  smaller  pueblos, 
having  but  two  or  three  hundred  people.  It  is 
built  in  a  rambling  square  of  two-story  terraced 
adobes  around  the  plaza  and  its  ancient  cotton- 
woods.  The  old  church  and  its  ruined  convent  — 
monuments  to  the  zeal  of  the  heroic  Spanish  mis- 
sionaries —  doze  at  the  western  end  of  the  square, 
forgetful  of  the  bloody  scenes  they  have  witnessed. 
Here  the  first  pioneers  of  Christianity  were  poi- 
soned by  their  savage  flock;  and  here  in  the  red 
Pueblo  Rebellion  of  1680  three  later  priests  were 
roasted  in  the  burning  church.  But  all  that  is 
past.  To-day  the  Indians  are  peaceful,  well-to-do, 
happy  farmers,  with  broad  fields  of  corn  and  wheat, 
beans,  watermelons,  and  squashes  reaching  along 
the  river,  and  little  fruit  orchards  about  their  quiet 
town ;  members  of  the  church,  and  citizens  of  the 
United  States  by  the  treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo 


THE  LAND  OF  THE  ADOBE  95 

—  thougli  that  fact  seems  never  to  have  penetrated 
the  powers  at  Washington.  There  is  an  equally 
dense  popular  ignorance  as  to  the  Spanish  doings  / 
in  the  beginning  of  the  New  World,  and  particu- 
larly the  beginning  of  the  United  States.  Our 
partisan  histories,  even  our  encyclopedias,  are 
either  strangely  silent  or  as  strangely  biased.  They 
do  not  seem  to  realize  the  precedence  of  Spain,  nor 
the  fact  that  she  made  in  America  a  record  of  hero- 
ism, of  unparalleled  exploration  and  colonization 
never  approached  by  any  other  nation  anywhere. 
Long  before  a  Saxon  had  raised  so  much  as  a 
hut  in  the  New  World,  or  penetrated  a  hundred 
miles  from  the  coast,  the  Spanish  pioneers  had 
explored  America  from  Kansas  to  Cape  Horn,  and 
from  sea  to  sea;  and  had,  far  inland,  a  chain  of 
Spanish  cities  five  thousand  miles  long !  We  talk 
of  the  cruelty  of  the  Spanish  conquests ;  but  they 
were  far  less  cruel  than  the  Saxon  ones.  The 
Spaniard  never  exterminated.  He  conquered  the 
aborigine  and  then  converted  and  educated  him, 
and  preserved  him  —  with  a  scholarship,  humanity, 
and  zeal  of  which,  to  our  shame  be  it  said,  our  own 
history  does  not  furnish  the  hint  of  a  parallel.  The 
proof  is  in  living  flesh  and  blood.  If  we  ever  reach  as 
humane  and  honorable  an  Indian  policy  as  Spain  has 
maintained  firmly  for  three  hundred  and  fifty  years, 
it  will  be  a  most  creditable  national  achievement. 


96  A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

Among  the  most  striking  chapters  of  the  real 
American  history  which  I  hope  to  live  to  see  in 
print  (for  we  have  none  now) ;  a  history  which 
shall  be  able  to  grasp  the  fact  that  the  American 
continent  has  a  heart  as  well  as  an  Atlantic  cuticle  j 
which  shall  realize  that  there  is  a  West,  and  was 
one  long  before  there  was  an  East ;  which  shall  so 
far  escape  the  ignorance  of  prejudice  as  to  admit 
the  fact  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  played  a  very  squeaky 
second  fiddle  in  pioneering  in  the  New  World  —  in 
such  a  history  there  will  be  no  more  thrilling  record 
than  that  of  the  now  unwritten  heroism  of  the^ 
Catholic  missionaries  to  the  Southwest.  Heroism 
outside  my  creed  is  just  as  heroic  as  heroism  within 
it ;  and  it  must  be  a  very  bigoted  and  narrow-gauge 
Christian  or  free  thinker  who  cannot  admire  that 
absolutely  unparalleled  story  of  devotion,  of  daunt- 
less courage,  superhuman  endurance,  and  boundless 
faith.  No  other  church  ever  made  such  a  record  as 
that  which  Rome  has  carved  in  the  flinty  bosom  of 
the  Southwest.  The  labors  of  Father  Junipero  Serra 
and  other  Franciscans  on  the  coast,  nearly  a  couple 
of  centuries  later,  were  heroic,  but  in  no  way 
comparable  to  the  incredible  achievements  of  the 
devoted  frailes  who  penetrated  and  subdued  the 
incomparable  deserts  of  the  Southwest  with  their 
ferocious  savage  tribes. 

It  was  a  Spanish  priest  who  discovered  New 


tHE  LAND  OJ'  THJi  ADOBE  97 

Mexico  and  Arizona,  a  long,  long  lifetime  before 
an  Anglo-Saxon  had  so  much  as  seen  the  coast  of 
the  United  States;  and  long  before  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  held  services  on  the  shore  of  New  England, 
Catholic  fathers  were  converting  dusky  congrega- 
tions in  little  mud  chapels  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
continent.  In  heroism  and  devotion  they  ranked 
with  the  early  martyrs;  and  too  frequently,  too, 
in  their  sufferings.  Hundreds  of  them  watered  the 
bare,  brown  soil  with  their  blood.  In  one  day 
alone,  in  the  red  insurrection  of  1680,  twenty-one 
priests  were  butchered  by  the  swarthy  insurgents, 
in  nearly  as  many  localities  in  New  Mexico.  The 
main  line  of  Spanish  colonization  was  of  course 
along  the  valley  of  the  Rio  Grande ;  but  the  padres 
were  everywhere.  Unarmed  and  alone  they  pene- 
trated to  the  Moqui  pueblos,  three  hundred  miles 
west ;  to  Zuiii,  to  Acoma,  and  established  the  lonely 
missions.  They  had  a  different  people  to  deal  with 
from  those  whom  Serra  found  in  California  in  1759 
—  a  wild,  savage-hearted,  treacherous  race  of  idola- 
ters. They  built  no  such  noble  piles  as  our  coast 
missions ;  but  their  box  churches  of  stone  and  adobe 
were  part  of  a  grander  monument,  of  which  with 
more  than  its  classic  pertinence  may  be  said,  "  If 
you  seek  their  monument,  look  around  you."  They 
have  left  their  indelible  impress  in  every  nook  of 
the  most  unpromising  field  on  earth;  their  stamp 


98    A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

is  still  upon  its  customs,  its  language,  and  its  relig- 
ion. And  it  was  no  ephemeral  zeal.  The  history 
of  the  E-oman  church  in  New  Mexico  is  the  history 
of  the  country  for  a  third  of  a  millennium.  They 
did  more  to  conquer  the  Southwest  than  did  the 
Spanish  soldiery.  Where  there  was  one  battle  there 
were  ten  thousand  prayers  and  exhortations;  for 
every  fort  there  were  a  score  of  churches.  And 
while  the  military  influence  of  Spain  in  what  is  now 
the  United  States  lies  forgotten  under  the  dust  of 
centuries,  its  religious  influence  is  the  ruling  power 
to-day  in  an  enormous  area. 

From  San  Yldefonso  to  Santa  F6  is  less  than 
thirty  miles,  but  it  gave  me  a  hard  day.  A  Mexi- 
can, evidently  misunderstanding  my  jargon,  directed 
me  south  instead  of  east ;  and  as  the  trail  was  dim 
and  crossed  by  and  branching  into  countless  others, 
I  soon  found  myself  at  a  loss  in  the  wilderness. 
All  day  long  we  wandered  over  the  gravelly  mesas, 
suffering  torture  from  thirst,  for  I  had  brought  no 
water,  and  not  a  little  from  hunger.  Shadow  came 
to  appreciate  the  unpleasant  situation,  and  every 
now  and  then  howled  dolefully.  At  last,  at  eight 
o'clock  at  night,  just  as  I  was  deciding  to  dig  a 
hole  in  the  sand  and  crawl  in  for  the  night,  a  dim 
light  far  ahead  made  me  throw  my  hat  aloft  and 
whoop  like  a  Comanche.  An  hour  later  Shadow 
and  I  were  seriously  lowering  the  water  of  a  well 


THE  LAND  OP  THE  ADOBE  99 

at  the  first  house  in  Santa  F^,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
more  were  in  the  hospitable  clutches  of  friends, 
after  a  painful  walk  of  forty-two  miles  with  a  heavy 
load,  for  I  had  brought  my  knapsack  all  the  way 
from  Espanola. 

Quaint  old  Santa  Fe  interested  us  much  —  me, 
because  it  is  the  most  curious  town  in  the  country 
which  is  shared  by  Americans,  and  Shadow,  because 
it  was  the  first  real  town  he  had  ever  been  in.  He 
revelled  in  the  narrow  old  streets,  in  the  vehicles, 
in  the  burros  with  their  kidney-shaped  loads  of 
wood,  and,  above  all,  in  the  market,  where  hung 
meat  plenty,  and  even  jackrabbits.  It  was  very 
difficult  to  convince  him  that  these  tempting  dis- 
plays were  not  fox  his  special  benefit,  and  particu- 
larly the  first  jackrabbits  that  he  had  seen  so  tame 
that  he  could  actually  catch  them.  We  were  there 
eight  days,  travelling  about  a  great  deal  and  find- 
ing many  interesting  things.  The  possibilities 
of  the  adobe  surprised  me,  for  there  we  found  hand- 
some residences  and  creditable  four-story  buildiugs 
made  of  the  despised  "mud  brick."  It  was  very 
interesting,  too,  to  watch  the  Mexican  workmen 
turning  gold  and  silver  bars  into  miles  of  precious 
wire,  and  winding  that,  in  turn,  into  the  exquisite 
and  intricate  patterns  of  their  characteristic  filigree 
jewelry. 

Santa  Fe  was  founded  in  1605  by  Juan  de  Onate, 


100       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

the  colonizer  and  first  governor  of  New  Mexico. 
There  was  long  a  contention  that  it  antedated  St. 
Augustine,  Florida;  but  history  is  as  conclusive 
on  this  point  as  on  the  year  of  Waterloo.  St. 
Augustine  was  founded  in  1560,  and  was  the  first 
Caucasian  town  in  the  United  States.  The  second 
was  San  Gabriel  de  los  Espanoles,  now  Chamita, 
which  I  had  passed  just  before  reaching  Espanola. 
Onate  founded  this  in  1598.  The  third  was  Santa 
¥6,  1605. 

There  are  a  great  many  other  fables  about  Santa 
Fd,  now  exploded  by  scientific  research,  but  still 
current ;  but  the  truth  is  romantic  and  interesting 
enough.  The  "oldest  church  in  America''  dates 
only  from  1710,  the  original  church  having  been 
destroyed  in  the  rebellion  of  1680.  There  are 
many  older  churches  here  in  New  Mexico ;  but  for 
all  that,  the  old  church  of  Santa  Fe  is  a  valuable 
historic  building.  The  "  oldest  house  in  America," 
just  back  of  this  church,  is  not  half  so  old  as  some 
other  houses  in  New  Mexico ;  but  the  tourist  can- 
not so  easily  see  them,  and  this  is  really  a  very 
old  building,  perhaps  older  than  any  in  the  East. 
The  adobe  "Palace"  is  similarly  broidered  with 
vague  fables ;  but  though  it  is  not  an  old  building 
at  all,  it  stands  on  historic  ground. 

The  early  history  of  Santa  Fd  was  full  of  romance 
and  danger.    Its  most  thrilling  chapters  were  those 


THE  LAND  OP  THE  ADOBE       101 

of  the  Pueblo  rebellion.  In  1680  the  swarming  In- 
dians besieged  the  place.  Governor  Otermin  and  his 
handful  of  men  fought  long  against  the  overwhelm- 
ing odds,  and  finally  carved  their  way  through  the 
savages  and  retreated  to  El  Paso. 

In  1693  Diego  de  Vargas,  the  generous  and  brave 
reconqueror,  stormed  Santa  F^,  and  took  it  away 
from  the  Pueblos;  but  they  had  destroyed  the 
Spanish  buildings,  and,  worst  of  all,  the  archives. 

The  quaint  old  town,  instinct  with  the  romance 
of  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  years,  is  well 
worth  detailed  inspection,  but  I  need  not  go  into 
details  here.  It  has  often  been  described,  and  is 
easy  to  be  seen  for  one's  self.  This  is  not  a  guide- 
book, but  the  record  of  a  walk  and  of  some  of  the 
salient  points  which  struck  the  walker  —  the  ran- 
dom impressions  of  then,  recounted  by  the  light  of 
later  study  and  intimate  acquaintance. 

The  characteristic  industry  of  Santa  F^  is  the 
manufacture  of  Mexican  filigree.  It  is  very  inter- 
esting to  watch  —  as  any  one  is  welcome  to  do — 
the  various  processes  through  which  the  precious 
metals  must  pass  ere  they  emerge  in  the  shape  of 
that  wonderful  jewelry  which  is  so  widely  re- 
nowned. In  the  showcases  you  may  see  countless 
bracelets,  chains,  napkin  rings,  card-holders,  card- 
cases,  earrings,  breastpins,  hair  combs,  and  other 
articles  in  gold  and  silver,  composed  of  the  most 


102   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

exquisite,  dainty,  and  complicated  designs  —  slip- 
pers, scrolls,  mandolins,  guitars,  butterflies,  grass- 
hoppers, flowers  of  all  sorts,  fish,  and  everything 
else  that  ingenuity  can  devise.  And  each  article 
is  made  by  the  innumerable  twistings  of  wires  as 
delicate  as  a  hair.  The  gold  or  silver  is  melted 
from  coin  in  a  crucible,  and  cast  in  an  ingot  about 
twelve  inches  long  and  half  an  inch  in  diameter. 
This  is  repeatedly  passed  between  powerful  steel 
rollers  in  slots  of  graduated  size,  and  at  every  pas- 
sage becomes  slenderer  and  longer.  Then  it  is 
taken  to  still  finer  rolls,  and  pressed  and  pressed 
again,  until  the  once  ingot  has  become  a  scarcely 
visible  wire,  thousands  of  feet  in  length.  A  few 
yards  of  this — as  much  as  can  conveniently  be 
handled  —  is  then  doubled,  and  the  loop  placed  on 
a  rapidly  revolving  hook,  while  the  operator  holds 
the  ends.  Thus  is  soon  formed  a  double  twisted 
wire.  This  is  put  through  a  smooth  roll,  and 
comes  out  a  tiny  flattened  wire,  the  two  edges 
being  beaded  of  course,  wherever  the  two  strands 
have  crossed  each  other.  This  beading  process  is 
necessary  to  give  an  edge  that  will  hold.  Mean- 
time the  artistic  German  foreman  has  drawn  a  leaf 
or  a  scroll ;  a  Mexican  workman  takes  some  heavier 
wire  and  makes  a  frame  of  the  shape  designed; 
and  then,  catching  the  end  of  the  beaded  wire,  pro- 
ceeds  to  fill  his   frame.     He  has  a  little  brass- 


THE  LAND  OF  THE  ADOBE       103 

covered  affair  which  looks  like  the  bottom  of  a 
pocket  flask.  Along  the  greatest  diameter  of  its 
oval  base  is  a  row  of  microscopic  teeth ;  and  around 
these  he  weaves  the  beaded  wire  in  and  out  with 
intricate  twists  which  no  Yankee  eye  can  follow. 
Thus  he  arranges  the  gauzy  meshes,  which  another 
workman  solders  into  the  frame  ;  the  frame 
and  others,  similarly  filled,  are  joined  together 
until  the  whole  design  is  complete ;  the  burnisher 
does  his  work,  and  there  you  have  a  dream  of 
exquisite  beauty  which  can  no  more  be  described 
than  can  the  most  delicate  traceries  of  a  frosted 
window-pane.  The  mechanical  part  is  all  done  by 
Mexican  workmen — we  are  of  too  impatient  blood 
for  such  slow  pains-taking  —  but  the  designing  is 
mostly  by  American  and  German  artists. 

A  more  interesting  ethnologic  study  is  among 
the  Indian  scholars  of  the  now  numerous  special 
schools  in  Santa  Fe.  Whatever  thoughtful  people 
may  think  as  to  our  justification  in  forcibly  taking 
these  citizens  of  the  United  States  (for  all  Pueblo 
Indians  are  citizens)  away  from  their  homes  to  be 
given  an  alleged  education,  the  processes  are  in- 
structive and  full  of  interest.  The  adaptability  of 
the  Pueblo  child  to  these  new  conditions  is  surpris- 
ing to  the  average  visitor.  I  can  best  illustrate  it 
by  reproducing  some  of  their  own  letters  given  me 
at  the  time.     You  must  remember  that  up  to  the 


104   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

time  of  going  to  school  these  swart  pupils  have 
none  of  that  help  from  heredity  which  is  such  an 
advantage  to  our  children — who  are  really  half- 
educated  before  they  begin  to  be  educated  at  all. 
But  to  the  letters. 

Here  is  a  comically  idiomatic  one  from  a  young 
Pueblo  whose  schooling  had  lasted  but  a  year.  The 
handwriting  is  very  fair. 

"Indian  School, 
"Albuquerque,  N.  M. 

"My  Dear  Maj.  Sanchez:  I  am  so  glad  to  see 
you  this  morning  but  when  you  go  home  did  not 
said  good  buy  in  me  Maj  Sanchez  I  think  you  very 
good  man  to  take  care  the  Indians  Pueblo  I  guess 
you  know  yesterday  morning  one  Ute  boy  died  in 
the  mountains  and  this  morning  Mr  Loveland  go 
get  that  died  boy 

"This  afternoon  1st  and  6th  Div  boys  worked 
and  I  work  in  the  Laundry  and  other  boys  work  in 
the  new  ground  make  a  road  and  two  boys  cutting 
the  oats  last  week  San  Domingo  came  down  in  here 
he  said  28  day  more  stand  here  This  morning  I 
cut  the  bread  in  the  kitchen  when  finished  cut 
bread  then  put  on  the  table  in  dining  room  to  eat 
the  boys  when  ready  to  breakfirst 

"I  have  learn  maps  of  Aisa  and  Europ  and  U  S  s 

"  Yesterday  great  wide  blew  I  think  fell  down  in 


THE  LAND  OF  THE  ADOBE       105 

the  bedroom  I  am  afraid  Maj  Sanchez  and  other 
boys  slept  and  get  up  afraid  some  said  I  think  fell 
down  this  house  Them  told  boys  I  said  no  not  fell 
down  just  wide  blew  outside 

"When  I  go  home  I  have  much  to  do  in  the 
home  work  in  the  garden  hoe  and  then  again  other 
garden  cut  wheat  and  I  have  cows  to  take  carry 
and  I  have  horses  and  burros  and  sometime  go  to 
Santa  Ye  I  have  Fourth  Eeader  now  good  buy  Maj 
Sanchez 

"Your  Friend 

"  Fritz  Bradford 
"Santo  Domingo,  N  M" 

Now  I  call  that  an  interesting  letter,  and  the 
description  of  the  cyclone  is  graphic  if  not  gram- 
matical. 

That  is  one  of  the  poorest  of  the  lot.  Here  is  a 
good  one  from  a  fifteen-year-old  boy  who  had  been 
at  school  three  years. 

"My  Dear  Maj.  Saxchez:  This  evening  I  am 
going  to  write  you  a  letter  to  tell  you  all  about  the 
school.  We  have  not  so  many  boys  as  we  use  to 
have,  because  all  the  Sandia  boys  went  home  and 
nearly  all  the  Laguna.  But  we  expect  to  have 
more  boys  and  girls  the  next  year,  because  we  are 
going  to  have  a  better  house  and  school  than  this. 


106       A  TRAMP   ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

But  I  think  I  will  not  come  here  to  school — I 
think  I  better  go  to  Carlisle  if  my  parents  let  me 
go,  because  I  want  to  see  the  large  town  and  some 
others  interesting  things.  If  you  see  my  parents, 
please  tell  them  I  am  well  and  tell  them  the  time 
is  coming  when  we  all  go  home,  and  tell  my  father 
that  I  want  to  go  to  Carlisle  to  school. 

"I  have  been  in  school  only  a  few  days  last  month 
and  this,  because  we  were  working  in  the  new  build- 
ing, we  painted  the  whole  building.  I  had  worked 
45  days  and  Mr.  Bryan  pay  me  50  cents  a  day,  and 
I  earn  $22.50.  I  don't  know  how  well  you  can 
understand  me,  because  I  cannot  speak  very  good 
English  yet.  That  is  all  I  can  write  tonight,  for 
it  is  pretty  near  bed-time,  and  we  must  get  ready 
to  go  to  bed. 

"Your  friend 

"  James  D.  Portee, 
**  PojOAQUB  Pueblo,  N.  M." 

Porter's  Indian  name  is  Marcos  Tapia  ("Mark 
Wall").  The  name  of  his  pueblo  is  pronounced 
'Po-whach-y. 

From  Santa  Fe  we  visited  the  pueblo  of  Tesiique, 
seven  miles  north  —  one  of  the  smaller  of  these 
Indian  town-republics,  but  one  of  the  easiest  of 
access  to  the  tourist.  Its  houses  are  of  a  now 
uncommon  type,  double,  two-storied,  and  terraced 


THE  LAND  O^  THE  ADOBE  107 

on  both  sides,  half  facing  to  the  central  plaza,  and 
half  to  the  cold  world.  Half  the  roof  of  the  first 
story  forms  a  porch  for  the  second.  In  the  whole 
pueblo  there  was  not  then  a  door  on  the  ground 
floor;  and  there  were  but  few  windows.  To  get 
into  a  lower  story,  one  must  climb  a  ladder  to  the 
roof,  open  a  trap-door,  and  go  down  another  lad- 
der. 

The  upper  houses  open  by  ordinary  doors  to  the 
roof.  All  are  adobe,  small  but  well  made,  and  have 
from  one  to  three  rooms  — generally  two.  They  are 
whitewashed  with  gypsum  inside,  and  beautifully 
neat.  In  the  corner  of  each  room  is  the  comical — but 
withal  incomparably  convenient  —  adobe  fire-place, 
common  to  all  Mexican  and  Indian  houses,  and  in 
it  stand  the  knotted  sticks  of  cedar,  for  in  this 
country  wood  is  always  burned  upright  instead  of 
horizontally.  In  the  hearth,  in  all  probability, 
you  may  see  sundry  rude  images  of  red  clay  bak- 
ing, or  well-made  pottery,  of  peculiar  polish  and 
decoration,  and  characteristic  shape.  Now  some 
very  excellent  travellers  from  the  East  buy  these 
fantastic  images  and  take  them  home  as  "Indian 
idols,''  whereby  they  become  a  laughing-stock. 
These  people  are  hardly  more  idolaters  than  we  are. 
They  make  these  "idols"  simply  to  sell  to  the 
confiding,  and  they  do  sell  both  by  the  hundreds. 
Nor   are    pottery  and   earthen    dolls   their    only 


108        A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

resources  thereunto.  On  their  walls  hang  Spring- 
field and  Winchester  rifles,  double-barrelled  shot- 
guns, and  the  like,  cartridge  belts  and  reloading 
tools ;  but  they  sell  to  tourists  any  quantity  of 
bows  and  arrows  and  raw-hide  shields,  and  the 
tourists  carry  off  the  relics  as  something  really 
used  by  the  "red"  men!  They  pay  five  or  six 
prices  for  them,  too,  for  the  Pueblos  have  not  been 
slow  to  learn  from  the  Jews  who  trade  with  them. 

I  know  not  why  it  is ;  but  people  who  had  "good 
horse  sense  "  back  in  Boston,  New  York,  or  Cincin- 
nati, seem  when  they  get  West  to  be  ambitious 
only  to  show  how  foolish  they  can  be. 

Now  when  a  Westerner  sees  anything  novel  and 
surprising  he  takes  it  all  in  without  moving  a 
muscle.  He  "always  comes  downstairs  that  way." 
He  has  learned  the  a,  b,  c  of  the  savoir  faire  — when 
in  a  strange  place,  to  keep  his  eyes  and  ears  open,  his 
mouth  shut.  Thereby,  he  always  escapes  making 
a  spectacle  of  himself.  If  the  Easterner  in  the 
West  would  follow  this  rule,  he  would  be  less 
"filled"  with  ridiculous  stories.  The  people  of 
the  West  are  not  particularly  looking  for  some  one 
to  impose  upon  and  tell  silly  fables  to ;  but  they 
are  kind-hearted,  and  when  they  see  that  the 
tourist  will  be  disappointed  unless  he  is  "  filled  " 
— as  is  generally  the  case — they  try  to  accommo- 
date him. 


THE  LAND  OF  THE  ADOBE       109 

lu  every  house  at  Testique,  as  in  other  pueblos, 
the  visitor  will  find  the  cooking  arrangements 
among  the  chief  points  of  interest.  At  the  side  of 
one  of  the  rooms — usually  that  also  used  as  a  store- 
house and  granary — is  a  wooden  trough,  a  foot  deep, 
from  three  to  five  feet  long,  and  three  wide.  In  it 
are  fastened  from  one  to  three  curious  rocks,  shaped 
something  like  a  bracket,  slightly  concave,  and 
sloping  from  the  edge  to  the  bottom  of  the  trough. 
They  are  about  six  inches  wide  and  eighteen  long, 
and  weigh  fifty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds 
apiece.  These  are  the  Pueblo  metates,  or  hand- 
mills,  and  on  these,  with  smaller,  oval  stones,  thin 
enough  to  be  easily  grasped,  the  women  rub  down 
their  blue  maize  into  a  sweet  pulp.  This  batter  is 
then  spread  on  flat  rocks  over  the  fire,  and  there 
baked  into  guayaves.  Jerked  meat  —  that  is,  meat 
cut  into  thin  strips  and  dried  in  the  sun  on  lines  — 
hangs  on  the  walls,  and  there  are  other  provisions 
stowed  away  in  various  corners.  A  few  red  earthen 
cooking-pots,  and  the  brightly  painted  tinajas,  or 
water-jars,  a  coffee-pot,  and  some  minor  accessories 
complete  the  outfit. 

When  you  go  to  visit  an  American  friend  of 
family,  the  chances  are  that  his  young  hopefuls  may 
make  life  heavy.  But  the  Pueblos  do  not  turn  loose 
on  3^011  a  pack  of  devastating  infants.  Go  into  one 
of  these  little  "mud  huts,"  and  you  will  see  the 


110       A  TRAIVIP   ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

baby  strapped  hand  and  foot,  and  wound  so  about 
with  cloths  that  it  cannot  stir.  A  small  board 
swings  from  the  low  rafters  by  buckskin  thongs, 
and  on  this  board  the  pappoose  lies  serene  as  a  sum- 
mer dream.  I  have  known  thousands  of  tiny  Pue- 
blos, and  it  is  one  of  the  rarest  things  in  the 
world  to  hear  one  of  them  screeching. 


VIII 

THE  MINERAL  BELT 

The  Great  Turquoise  and  its  Deserted  Drifts.  —  An  Elastic 
Road.  —  The  Oldest  Gold-fields.  —  Among  the  Mines.  — 
The  Paradise  of  Land-Grabbers.  —  My  Friend  the  Des- 
perado. —  Marino  and  the  Fat  Man.  —  The  Deadly  Cross- 
ing. — Lost  in  the  Snow. 

Parting  with  regret  from  the  "  ancient  metrop- 
olis" of  New  Mexico,  whose  every  nook  we  had 
pried  into  for  eight  happy  days,  we  turned  south 
and  trudged  blithely  down  the  long,  sloping 
plateaus.  The  town  had  already  begun  to  pall  on 
Shadow,  —  chiefly,  I  suspect,  because  he  had  me 
less  to  himself  there,  —  and  he  was  very  antic  on 
taking  again  to  the  road.  That  very  afternoon, 
however,  his  spirits  were  sadly  snubbed.  We 
came  near  two  preoccupied  coyotes  which  were 
trying  to  dig  a  rabbit  from  his  hole,  and  Shadow 
took  after  them  very  valorously.  The  mean  little 
wolves  led  him  olf  a  safe  distance  from  my  rifle, 
and  then  allowed  him  to  catch  up  with  them  — 

Ul 


112   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

and  how  he  wished  they  hadn't!  He  made  a  brave 
fight,  but  was  sorely  overmatched,  and  was  glad 
enough  to  break  away  and  make  back  to  me,  with 
several  unpleasant  cuts  in  his  sleek  coat. 

Passing  through  the  unimportant  mining  camp 
of  Bonanza  and  on  to  Carbonateville,  — a  town  six 
miles  from  a  drop  of  water,  —  we  came  to  the  little 
gray  knob  of  "  Mount "  Chalchuitl,  the  only  tur- 
quoise mine  on  the  continent,  except  one  known 
only  to  the  Zunis,  and  the  one  prehistoric  mine  in 
the  whole  Southwest,  despite  the  numerous  fables 
of  ancient  gold  there.  It  was  very  long  ago  when 
the  first  stone  hammer  was  swung  by  swarthy  fists 
against  those  white  rocks  and  thumped  out  the 
first  little  nugget  of  the  stone  that  stole  its  color 
from  the  sky.  The  great  hill  is  fairly  honey- 
combed, and  on  one  side  is  a  great  hole  which 
could  swallow  a  four-story  block  without  a  strain. 
The  Pueblos  have  always  prized  the  turquoise 
above  all  other  ornaments,  —  they  had  neither  gold 
nor  silver  in  the  old  days,  —  and  were  pecking 
away  with  their  rude  tools  at  this  precious  deposit 
long  before  Columbus.  Some  thirty  acres  are 
covered  with  debris  from  their  ancient  mines,  and 
upon  these  dumps  great  cedars  have  grown  to  the 
maturity  of  centuries.  The  tale  is  gravely  printed 
in  histories  that  the  early  Spanish  conquerors 
enslaved  the  Pueblos  in  this  and  other  mines,  and 


THE  MINERAL  BELT  113 

that  part  of  this  mountain  caved  in  and  buried  a 
lot  of  the  unfortunate  Indians.  But  this  is  a  silly- 
fable,  for  the  Spanish  never  enslaved  the  Pueblos, 
and  were,  on  the  contrary,  the  most  humane  neigh- 
bors the  American  Indian  ever  had  —  and  never 
worked  this  or  any  other  mine  in  New  Mexico 
until  very  modern  times. 

We  prospected  the  strange  hill  for  several  hours, 
and  I  cut  my  head  and  knees  badly  in  crawling 
along  a  half -filled  ancient  tunnel  for  a  couple  of 
hundred  feet  —  to  the  audible  discontent  of  Shadow, 
who  would  neither  enter  the  dismal  hole  himself 
nor  assent  to  my  doing  so,  A  fine  stone  hammer 
and  some  beautiful  nuggets  of  pure  azure  —  very 
different  from  the  worthless  green  of  most  of  the 
veins  —  rewarded  my  efforts. 

Crossing  the  Atchison,  Topeka  and  Santa  F^ 
Railroad  at  Cerillos  and  wading  the  icy  Galisteo, 
we  entered  upon  the  most  elastic  road  of  my 
experience.  Unwilling  to  trust  my  memory,  at 
this  late  date,  for  details  of  impression,  I  go  back 
to  my  letter-book  and  reproduce  what  I  wrote  to 
friends  that  night.  It  may  noc  be  scientifically 
exact,  but  it  covers  the  experience  better  than 
anything  I  could  write  now.     The  letter  says :  — 

"...  Here  I  was,  perplexed  by  about  fifteen  dif- 
ferent roads  branching  off  in  all  directions,  and  had 
to  take  one  by  guess.     Meeting  a  teamster  soon 


114   A  TEAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

after,  I  asked  him  if  this  was  the  road  to  Golden. 
*Yes,'  said  he,  *and  you've  got  a  big  afternoon's 
walk  before  you.  Golden's  twelve  miles  from 
here.'  That  didn't  trouble  me,  and  I  tramped 
three  miles  up  the  hills  until  I  met  two  men  in  an 
express.  They  informed  me  that  I  was  now  four- 
teen miles  from  Golden,  and  on  the  right  road.  A 
mile  and  a  half  beyond,  two  ox-teams  loaded  with 
coal  hove  in  sight,  and  the  drivers  said,  'Yes, 
straight  road,  sixteen  miles.'  That  began  to  give 
me  a  pain,  and  when  I  found  a  man  working  at  a 
coal  bank,  a  hundred  yards  further  on,  I  asked 
him  the  distance  to  Golden  in  a  voice  that  would 
have  drawn  tears  from  a  turnip.  He  mildly  but 
firmly  replied  that  it  was  just  eighteen  miles. 
Then  I  sat  down  on  a  rock  and  felt  of  my  feet,  to 
see  if  they  hadn't  got  turned  around  somehow.  A 
long-bearded  bushwhacker  came  loping  along  on  a 
little  bronco,  and  to  him  I  appealed :  *  Say,  Mister, 
don't  impose  on  an  orphan,  but  tell  me  how  far  it 
is  to  Golden.  If  it's  fifty  miles,  just  spit  it  right 
out,  for  I  want  to  know  the  worst.  They've  been 
breaking  it  to  me  gently  all  the  way,  but  I  want 
you  to  tell  me  the  whole  bitter  truth. '  He  looked 
at  me  compassionately,  doubtless  thinking  me  a 
crank,  and  told  me  it  was  not  quite  twenty  miles 
to  Golden.  The  conversations  occurred  exactly  as 
I  have  reported  them.    The  only  thing  that  puzzles 


THE   MINERAL  BELT  115 

me  is,  how  they  were  all  so  unanimous  in  sticking 
on  two  miles  each  time.  There  must  have  been  a 
conspiracy  to  impose  upon  my  confidence.  The 
reason  none  of  them  knew  the  distance  is,  that  the 
road  has  not  been  surveyed;  but  if  any  of  you 
should  ever  want  to  walk  it  I  can  tell  you  that  it 
is  just  twenty  and  one-eighth  miles  —  I  measured 
it  that  fateful  afternoon.  And  mean  miles  they 
are  —  sandy,  hilly,  and  dull.  There  is  some  very 
pretty  scenery,  too,  as  your  way  winds  among  the 
rough  Ortiz  Mountains ;  but  by  the  time  you  have 
climbed  ten  miles  of  semi-perpendicular  sand,  and 
still  have  not  reached  the  height  of  land,  the 
beauties  of  nature  are  quoted  considerably  below 
par.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  my  canteen,  filled  with 
muddy  water  from  the  vile  Galisteo,  I  never  should 
have  got  out,  for  it  is  the  dryest  road.  With  every 
*  snifter '  of  that  water  I  swallowed  a  tablespoonful 
of  iron  rust  and  sand,  but  it  tasted  sweet  as  honey. 
Clear  water  lacks  body  anyhow,  and  iron  is  good 
for  the  system.  At  last  the  highest  pitch  was 
reached,  and  Shadow  and  I  started  on  the  long 
delayed  down  grade.  Just  at  sunset  a  young  fel- 
low on  horseback  informed  me  that  it  was  still 
two  miles  to  Golden.  I  hurried  on  for  half  an 
hour  and  met  a  Mexican  who  said  Golden  was 
three  miles  away.  But  finally,  after  a  mile  climb 
up  the  wooded  hill,  I  heard  the  welcome  voice  of 


116   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

a  big  dog,  and  a  moment  later  caught  the  dim  from 
a  score  of  windows,  and  I  was  in  Golden." 

It  is  a  unique  and  interesting  camp,  this  to 
which  we  came  so  tired  and  hungry  on  the  evening 
of  December  5th  —  Golden,  or  the  New  Placers. 

Our  twelve  days  among  its  mines  were  of  the 
most  enjoyable  of  the  whole  journey,  though  with- 
out startling  adventures.  A  miner  friend  from 
Ohio  took  us  to  his  rough  little  jacal  and  made  us 
very  much  at  home.  After  the  first  two  days 
there  came  heavy  snowstorms  and  the  weather 
grew  very  bitter  at  that  altitude  of  over  seven 
thousand  feet,  but  every  day,  and  all  day  long,  we 
trudged  over  the  snow-buried  mountains  with 
Charlie  Smith,  poking  into  the  numerous  mines 
and  countless  prospect  holes  in  their  rocky  ribs, 
exploring  the  underground  miles  of  the  great  San 
Pedro  copper  mine,  and  gathering  whole  sacks  of 
beautiful  specimens  of  the  brilliant  copper  ores, 
•and  plenty  of  quartz  lumps  peppered  with  yellow 
gold.  Shadow's  fear  of  losing  me  soon  overcame 
his  horror  of  underground,  and  he  tugged  reluc- 
tantly at  my  heels  through  the  drifts  and  tunnels, 
and  showed  his  relief  by  wild  capers  whenever  we 
got  back  to  the  light  of  day.  It  was  in  the  placer 
mines,  however,  that  I  found  the  greatest  pleas- 
ure, and  Shadow  the  utmost  tribulation.  The 
Mexicans  who  worked  these  slow  but  sure-paying 


THE   MINERAL  BELT  117 

mines  —  while  the  more  "ambitious"  Americans 
were  trying  to  find  fortune  by  one  stroke  in  the 
quartz  veins  —  took  a  great  fancy  to  me,  and  let 
me  work  all  I  desired  on  their  claims.  But  when- 
ever I  swung  down  by  the  rope  to  the  bottom  of 
one  of  their  thirty-foot  shafts  and  crawled  out  of 
sight  in  the  drift  to  scrape  up  a  "  prospect "  from 
the  pay-streak,  Shadow  sat  on  the  very  brink  of 
the  shaft  and  howled  at  the  top  of  his  voice  till  I 
came  up  again.  He  was  very  deeply  interested  in 
the  subsequent  panning-out  of  the  pay-dirt,  and 
never  moved  from  my  side  during  the  entire  oper- 
ation, no  matter  what  the  temptations  of  vagrant 
curs  or  other  excitements.  It  did  not  take  me 
long  to  become  expert  with  rocker  and  pan,  and  I 
have  still  several  little  phials  of  nuggets  and 
"  dust "  as  trophies  of  my  first  gold-washing. 

Golden  is  one  of  the  pioneer  gold-fields  of  the 
United  States.  The  New  Placers  —  so  named  from 
the  vast  areas  of  auriferous  gravel  which  sur- 
rounded the  town  —  have  been  worked  by  the 
Mexicans  since  1828,  which  gives  priority  over  all 
other  workings  in  this  country,  except  those  of 
Cabarrus  County,  North  Carolina,  which  were  dis- 
covered a  generation  earlier.  The  history  of  the 
brave  little  town  has  been  made  tragic  by  its  con- 
nection with  an  American  perversion  of  a  Spanish 
land  grant.      People  of  the  East  look  upon  the 


118       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

Southwestern  land  grant  as  a  collective  swindle 
and  a  monstrosity,  forgetful  that  these  ^-rants  were 
made  by  the  Spanish  Crown  in  the  same  way  and 
for  the  same  reasons,  and  conveying  just  as  valid 
title  as  the  land  grants  of  England  or  France  upon 
which  the  skeptics  themselves  live.  The  New 
Mexican  land  grant  is  a  perfectly  normal  and 
proper  institution  in  itself,  and  the  only  trouble 
about  it  arises  from  the  frauds  practised  by  some 
American  land  pirates.  The  grant  which  laps 
over  Golden  is  a  sample  of  their  operations.  The 
original  Spanish  grant  was  miles  away  —  a  small 
triangle  of  a  few  hundred  acres,  with  its  apex 
pointing  west.  Under  the  manipulations  of  a 
syndicate  successive  surveys  turned  the  grant  over 
like  the  leaf  of  a  book,  so  that  its  apex  pointed 
east,  and  swelled  it  to  35,000  acres,  taking  in  a 
very  rich  mineral  country.  The  syndicate  then 
endeavored  to  oust  the  sturdy  miners  whose  claims 
they  had  thus  suddenly  blanketed;  but  that  was 
another  thing,  and  after  years  of  litigation  and 
occasional  resort  to  arms  the  miners  still  hold  their 
own.  Most  of  the  land  grants  in  New  Mexico  are 
not  frauds,  and  but  for  our  government's  shameful 
disregard  of  the  treaty  promises  under  which  it 
acquired  this  Territory  the  matter  would  have 
been  adjusted  long  ago.  Nothing  has  been  done 
to  settle  the  question  of  land  titles  in  the  South- 


THE    MINERAL  BELT  119 

west  —  a  very  simple  matter,  requiring  only  an 
investigation  to  prove  what  grants  are  fraudulent 
and  should  therefore  be  thrown  out,  and  what  are 
real  and  should  stand  —  until  within  a  year;  but 
now  a  measure  has  at  last  been  passed  by  Congress 
which  promises  the  necessary  relief. 

So  the  short  American  years  of  Golden  have  been 
troublous  ones ;  but  the}^  were  the  moral  making  of 
the  camp.  Most  mining  towns  of  the  frontier 
acquire  and  hold  the  lawless ;  but  the  bitter  tribu- 
lations of  Golden  sifted  the  "  stayers  "  to  the  solid 
few.  It  took  men  to  hold  the  camp  through  those 
years  of  hardship  and  danger,  and  men  they  are 
every  one,  tried  and  not  found  wanting.  It  was  a 
hard  life  through  all  that  bitter  struggle  —  a  life  of 
persecution  by  powerful  enemies  through  venal 
courts,  of  perverted  law  and  unperverted  lead; 
when  every  man  and  boy  packed  a  six-shooter  at 
his  waist,  and  knew  not  when  his  day  might  come, 
for  more  than  once  the  hired  assassin's  bullet 
whistled  down  the  lonely  canon.  And  in  those 
stirring  days  a  black-eyed  woman  of  ninety  pounds 
was  editing  and  issuing  alone  —  while  her  husband 
fought  the  monopoly  at  its  eastern  home  —  the 
brightest,  savagest,  most  fearless  bantam  of  a 
weekly  newspaper  in  the  West,  the  long-dead 
Golden  Retort.  Its  incisive  editorials  are  worth 
reading  yet,  for  their  lonely  but  undaunted  defiance 


120        A  TRAMP   ACROSS   THE  CONTINENT 

and  bitter  arraignment  of  the  corrupt  power  which 
then  swayed  the  whole  Territory. 

The  most  dramatic  episode  of  the  "  war  "  was  in 
May,  1883.  The  monopoly  seemed  on  the  point  of 
ousting  the  prospectors  from  their  rightful  claims. 
But  one  fine  day  as  the  hundred  imported  opera- 
tives of  the  big  copper  mine  filed  out  to  dinner, 
eleven  quiet  men  of  Golden,  decorated  with  Win- 
chesters and  Colts,  stepped  into  the  mine  and  said, 
"Guess  we'd  better  run  this  thing  awhile  now." 
And  they  had  their  way.  The  laborers  were  urged 
to  "  run  them  out " ;  but  the  laborers  could  see  no 
profit  in  playing  target  at  $1.50  per  diem.  The 
hardy  eleven  camped  in  the  mouth  of  the  mine, 
and  held  it,  despite  official  threats  to  starve  them 
out,  smoke  them  out,  shoot  them  out.  No  one 
seemed  anxious  to  bell  the  cat.  That  capture  was 
in  one  way  conclusive ;  for  though  the  questions  of 
law  have  not  even  yet  been  settled,  the  monopo- 
lists ceased  at  last  their  highwaymen's  tactics,  and 
sought  and  made  compromises  which  were  advan- 
tageous to  both  sides.  Now  capital  and  the  pros- 
pector work  there  side  by  side,  and  there  is  no 
longer  strife  to  retard  the  development  of  those 
rich,  ore-laden  ranges.  After  lying  in  neglected 
i-ust  for  years,  the  million-dollar  works  of  the  big 
copper  mine  are  running  again;  and  all  is  lovely. 

One  of  the  first  things  to  strike  an  observant  eye 


THE  IvnNERAL  BELT  121 

in  a  ■western  mining  camp  is  a  diagrammatic  expla- 
nation of  the  distrust  felt  in  the  East  toward  min- 
ing ventures.  That  so  many  have  been  "  bitten  " 
in  these  ventures  is  very  little  the  fault  of  the 
West.  There  have  been  some  wilful  swindles,  it 
is  true ;  but  the  mountains  are  there,  and  the  metal 
is  in  them ;  and  nine  times  out  of  ten  the  trouble  is 
solely  in  the  methods  obstinately  clung  to  by  the 
eastern  stockholders.  The  mine  is  safely  bought, 
the  board  of  directors  safely  elected,  the  stock 
safely  subscribed;  and  then  with  the  first  step  out 
of  doors  the  trouble  begins.  Instead  of  placing 
the  practical  supervision  of  the  mine  in  the  hands 
of  a  miner,  it  is  generally  given  to  an  eastern 
favorite  who  knows  no  more  of  mines,  to  quote  a 
western  simile,  "than  a  pig  does  of  side  pockets." 
And  the  fearful  and  wonderful  things  he  does! 
You  can  trace  his  footprints  in  every  camp  of  the 
West;  and  along  his  trail  are  generally  the  bones 
of  the  enterprise  he  bungled  to  death.  To  take  an 
example  from  Golden.  One  Ohio  company,  years 
ago,  invested  in  a  ten-stamp  quartz-mill  to  be  set 
up  here.  The  tenderfoot  superintendent  was  a 
part  of  the  machinery,  as  usual.  Arriving  here  he 
turned  up  his  nose  at  advice,  and  went  his  own 
gait.  And  what  do  you  imagine  he  did?  Well, 
not  much  —  except  to  erect  that  costly  mill  several 
miles  up  a  dry  canon  of  eternal  rock,  where  water 


122   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

could  not  be  had  by  drilling  a  mile!  He  seemed 
ignorant  that  a  stamp-mill  cannot  be  run  without 
water.  There  the  mill  was  when  I  came;  and 
agents  of  the  company  were  begging  help  from  the 
miners  of  Golden  —  help  to  move  the  mill  a  few 
miles  to  where  it  could  be  operated.  Another 
company  expended  $750,000  in  the  laudable  scheme 
to  run  a  fifteen-mile  pipe-line  from  the  Sandias  to 
Golden,  and  thus  bring  water  to  hydraulic  the 
enormous  areas  of  gold-bearing  gravel.  This  was 
all  very  well;  but  again  the  greenhorn  manager 
made  his  mark.  To  withstand  that  enormous 
pressure  he  laid  six-inch  pipe  of  sheet-iron!  Of 
course  that  papery  conduit  burst  before  it  was 
half  full  of  water.  The  company's  three-quarters 
of  a  million  turned  to  yellow  rust;  and  there  was 
an  end  of  it.  And  so  it  goes  —  and  the  West  is 
abused  by  the  eastern  stockholders  for  their  own 
folly. 

And  do  not  make  the  common  eastern  mistake  of 
deeming  the  western  man  an  ignorant  desperado, 
and  the  western  miner  a  besotted  brute  like  the 
imported  navvies  of  eastern  coal  mines.  Let  me 
tell  you,  that  in  these  little  prospect  holes  or 
down  in  the  developed  shafts,  picking  away  at 
the  stubborn  veins  or  tilting  the  gold-pan,  you 
will  find  your  peers  or  your  betters.  Some  of 
these  earth-stained,  ragged  men  are  better  educated 


THE   MINERAL  BELT  123 

than  you  or  I,  and  the  majority  of  them  are  fully 
as  shrewd  and  fully  as  honest.  These  men  are  not 
coolies.  They  are  not  here  as  day  laborers,  toiling 
for  a  pittance  of  some  other  man's  money;  but  they 
are  men  who  left  perhaps  better  chances  back  East 
than  you  have  now,  and  came  out  here  to  make  for- 
tunes. They  have  no  master,  and  what  they  have 
is  their  own.  Perhaps  it  is  only  a  little  hole  sunk 
a  few  yards  into  the  hard  rock ;  but  that  hole  may 
mean  more  money  than  you  ever  handled  in  all 
your  life  of  business.  Of  course,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  may  not  be  worth  a  continental  cent,  but 
a  miner  is  willing  to  take  his  chances. 

With  the  snow  more  than  two  feet  deep  on  a 
level,  and  a  walk  of  fifty  lonely  miles  to  the  rail- 
road ahead,  the  getting  away  from  Golden  did  not 
look  inviting.  But  I  was  getting  hungry  for  mail ; 
and  as  the  snow  showed  no  signs  of  disappearing, 
there  was  nothing  to  do  but  wade  it.  The  faithful 
low  shoes  —  now  nearly  through  their  third  pair  of 
soles  —  were  not  to  be  given  up ;  but  they  and  the 
long  stockings  made  slender  protection  against  the 
drifts,  and  so  I  bound  up  my  feet  and  legs  in 
gunny-sacks,  which  were  lighter  and  warmer  than 
boots.  Had  it  not  been  for  those  ungainly  leggins, 
I  never  should  have  got  through  that  awful  day; 
for  with  boots,  even  the  best,  my  feet  would  have 
frozen. 


124        A  TBAMP   ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

It  was  10.30  of  a  pleasant  December  morning 
when  we  bade  a  hearty  farewell  to  our  new-found 
friends  in  Golden,  and  started  trudging  up  the 
long,  gentle  slope  toward  the  Tijeras  ("  Scissors  ") 
canon,  through  the  deep  snow  and  with  a  heavy- 
burden  on  my  shoulders  —  for  I  had  shipped  only 
the  copper  and  silver  specimens  to  the  railroad  by 
stage,  and  was  carrying  the  gold  specimens  to  pack 
and  ship  at  Albuquerque.  My  entire  load  weighed 
nearly  forty  pounds,  which  is  altogether  too  much 
even  in  the  best  of  walking.  After  a  couple  of 
miles  we  left  the  well-broken  road  to  San  Pedro, 
and  struck  off  through  the  scattered  pinons  south- 
westvvardly.  We  had  now  no  path  save  the  tracks 
of  a  single  horse  which  had  been  ridden  to  Carnoe 
the  day  before,  so  we  had  to  break  our  own  way. 
It  was  the  hardest  long  walk  I  ever  attempted;  and 
poor  Shadow  fared  no  better.  The  snow  came 
above  his  belly,  so  that  it  was  impossible  for  him 
to  plough  any  distance ;  and  the  only  gait  by  which 
he  could  get  along  was  a  series  of  wearisome 
bounds.  In  and  out  among  the  foothills  of  the 
San  Ysidro  range  we  wound,  breathing  hard  with 
the  violent  labor,  perspiring  heavily  despite  the 
cold,  floundering  along  as  best  we  might  through  the 
snow  which  grew  deeper  and  deeper  as  we  kept 
gaining  a  higher  altitude.  Had  I  dreamed  that  it 
was  so  bad,  I  never  would  have  taken  that  moun- 


THE   MINEBAL  BELT  125 

tainous  route,  but  would  have  gone  to  the  railroad 
at  Wallace,  where  the  valley  is  too  warm  for  much 
snow.  But  now  I  did  not  like  to  turn  back,  and 
determined  to  break  through  to  Tijeras  if  possible. 
After  some  five  hours  of  fearful  toil,  we  reached 
the  little  creek  at  the  foot  of  the  noble  Sandias, 
and  crossed  it  at  a  spot  which  has  bloody  memories. 
While  in  Golden  I  had  become  acquainted  with 
the  famous  desperado,  Marino  Lebya,  a  herculean 
Mexican  of  astonishing  agility  and  almost  match- 
less skill  with  the  revolver  —  one  of  his  favorite 
pastimes  being  to  spur  his  fleet  horse  through  a 
village,  shooting  oif  the  heads  of  chickens  as  he 
galloped  past !  He  was  a  known  murderer,  having 
slain  many  men  in  quarrels  or  for  purposes  of  rob- 
bery, and  a  perennial  horse-thief;  but  he  walked 
the  streets  of  Golden  as  freely  as  any  one.  There 
were  many  warrants  out  against  him,  but  the 
numerous  officers  who  came  down  periodically  from 
Santa  Fe  to  arrest  him  always  took  very  good  care 
not  to  find  him,  nor  to  let  him  find  them;  for 
whenever  he  heard  of  such  an  official  visit  he 
always  buckled  on  his  unerring  six-shooters  and 
rode  into  Golden  at  top  speed,  to  "  see  who  would 
take  Marino."  His  bravado  was  endless,  and 
covered  no  lack  of  courage.  He  was  ordinarily 
a  good-natured  fellow,  and  I  had  many  very  enter- 
taining talks  with  him  without  at  all  suspecting 


126   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

who  he  was;  but  those  for  whom  he  conceived  a 
dislike  were  apt  to  fare  ill.  He  was  a  good  deal 
of  a  joker,  and  sometimes  a  very  cruel  one.  A 
very  wealthy  and  very  round  eastern  man  who  once 
came  to  Golden  to  buy  some  mines,  doubtless  has 
no  difficulty  to  this  day  in  recalling  his  first  —  and 
last  —  meeting  with  Lebya.  His  negotiations  were 
progressing  very  favorably,  and  he  had  stepped 
into  the  shanty  saloon  to  "set  'em  up"  to  a  num- 
ber of  miners.  Just  then  the  door  swung  open, 
and  in  strode  the  huge  Mexican,  his  broad,  rather 
handsome  face  flushed  with  drinking,  and  the  two 
unerring  six-shooters  in  his  belt.  Marino  never 
liked  fat  men  —  they  always  seemed  to  irritate  him 
by  their  rotund  sleekness,  and  at  sight  of  the  capi- 
talist his  brow  clouded.  The  outlaw  spoke  excel- 
lent English ;  and  stalking  up  to  the  stranger  he 
demanded:  "Who  told  you  to  come  here?  We 
don't  want  fat  men  here !  "  The  little  crowd  fell 
back,  and  the  capitalist's  face  turned  the  color  of 
paper  as  the  desperado  seized  him  by  the  shoulder. 
He  could  only  stammer,  "  Wh-what's  the  ma-mat- 
ter?" 

"  I'm  Marino,  and  I  hate  fat  men,"  was  the  reply. 
"If  you're  here  to-morrow  I'll  peg  you  down  out 
here  and  light  a  fire  on  that  big  stomach  "  —  and 
leaving  the  stranger  more  dead  than  alive,  Mariflo 
went  off  up  street.     It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add 


THE  MINERAL  BELT  127 

that  the  capitalist  did  not  wait  for  that  abdominal 
conflagration.  There  was  no  stage,  but  he  would 
sooner  have  walked  out  than  spend  that  night  in 

Golden.     He    got  away  somehow;    and    the 

Mining  and  Milling  Company  died  thus  in  its  in- 
fancy. 

But  to  return  to  the  bank  of  San  Pedro  Creek. 
Some  time  before  my  visit,  an  American  doctor 
coming  up  from  Albuquerque  had  stopped  over 
night  at  Tijeras,  and  had  carelessly  exposed  a  con- 
siderable roll  of  money.  He  rode  a  fine  horse,  and 
had  a  good  revolver.  Kext  morning  as  he  came  on 
toward  Golden,  Marino's  gang  —  who  had  taken  a 
short  cut  from  Tijeras  to  get  ahead  —  ambushed 
him  at  this  very  crossing.  His  horse  fell  at  their 
first  volley,  crushing  his  leg  beneath  it,  but  he 
fought  bravely,  emptying  his  six-shooter  at  the 
assassins,  until  he  fell,  heavy  with  bullets.  The 
outlaws  took  his  valuables  and  then  burned  the 
bodies  of  horse  and  rider.  Eor  a  long  time  noth- 
ing was  known  of  his  fate.  At  last  his  brother 
came  from  the  East  to  make  search  and  finally 
found  his  watch  in  pawn  at  Bernalillo.  By  this 
clew  four  of  the  murderers  were  traced,  and  an 
Albuquerque  mob  left  them  dangling  to  four  tele- 
graph poles.  Marino,  however,  escaped,  and  retri- 
bution did  not  overtake  him  until  three  years  after 
I  knew  him.     A  Mexican  whom  he  had  treated 


128       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

with  great  generosity,  and  upon  whose  friendship 
he  relied,  was  bribed  to  kill  him,  or  to  assist  a 
deputy  sheriff  in  doing  so.  The  precious  couple 
met  Marino  on  the  forest  road  a  few  miles  from 
Golden,  and  the  always  alert  outlaw  challenged 
them.  "What?  Don't  you  know  me?"  cried  the 
false  friend,  riding  up  with  a  cordial  smile  and 
extending  his  hand.  As  Marino  grasped  it,  the 
traitor  jerked  him  forward  and  the  cowardly  officer 
put  a  bullet  through  Marino's  brain  from  behind. 
Had  the  heavy  ball  gone  through  the  heart  instead 
of  instantly  paralyzing  the  great  nerve-centre, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  a  man  of  Marino's  force  of 
will  would  have  slain  both  his  murderers  before 
dying  himself  j  and  they  knew  that  no  mere  sur- 
prise, however  complete,  could  make  them  a  match 
for  that  lightning  marksman.  Only  some  such 
cowardly  trap  as  theirs  could  have  conquered  him. 
Marino  was  dearly  loved  by  the  common  people,  to 
whom  he  was  a  very  Robin  Hood,  fleecing  only  the 
rich  and  dividing  with  the  humble ;  but  he  was  a 
terror  to  that  whole  section,  and  his  death  was  a 
relief  to  the  public. 

In  the  ruins  of  the  old  church  just  beyond  this 
fatal  crossing  I  stopped  to  rest  and  escape  the  icy 
wind,  for  all  my  clothing  was  wringing  wet,  while 
Shadow  was  in  a  perfect  lather.  In  ten  minutes 
we  were  on  the  road  again,  but  with  increasing 


THE  MINERAL  BELT  129 

anxiety.  There  had  been  an  ominous  change  in 
the  weather,  and  sheet-like  clouds  covered  the  sky. 
The  wind  was  rising,  too;  and  suddenly  I  saw, 
with  a  thrill  of  terror,  that  a  few  finer  particles  of 
the  dry  snow  were  beginning  to  blow  northward. 
That  may  seem  a  circumstance  too  trivial  to  men- 
tion at  all,  but  I  knew  it  was  a  matter  of  life  or 
death.  We  were  in  a  trackless  wilderness,  far 
from  help,  or  food,  or  warmth,  and  with  no  more 
than  the  remotest  idea  in  what  direction  they  lay ; 
night  near  at  hand,  and  a  deadly  chill  in  the  air, 
and  our  only  guide  to  safety  the  footprints  of  a 
horse.  In  ten  minutes .  my  fears  were  realized. 
The  wind  took  sudden  strength,  and  came  shriek- 
ing savagely  down  the  valley,  scooping  up  great 
sheets  of  the  snow-flour  and  whirling  it  hither  and 
yon  in  blinding  volleys.  The  footprints,  upon 
which  our  lives  might  depend,  drew  dimmer,  faded, 
were  wiped  out  altogether.  I  pulled  my  hat  over 
my  eyes,  shut  my  teeth,  and  plunged  desperately 
and  blindly  on  in  the  general  direction  of  the  now 
obliterated  trail.  It  was  a  fearful  struggle  against 
that  head-wind,  through  the  snow.  Presently 
Shadow  crouched  under  a  spreading  pinon,  whose 
piny  boughs  kept  off  the  storm,  and  howled  dis- 
mally. I  called  to  him,  and  then  walked  on, 
thinking  that  the  poor  fellow  would  surely  follow; 
but  he  was  too  worn  out,  and  only  howled  the 


130   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

louder  and  did  not  budge.  I  went  back  to  him, 
put  my  knife-belt  around  his  neck,  and  led  him. 
For  perhaps  a  mile  he  did  his  best  to  come  on,  but 
then  he  could  keep  his  feet  no  longer,  and  could 
only  be  dragged  limp  and  helpless  as  a  dead  body. 
That  would  not  do  —  the  strap  would  choke  him. 
Deadly  as  the  danger  was  I  could  not  desert  him 
—  dear  Shadow,  wlio  had  come  to  seem  more  like  a 
brother  than  a  dog,  in  our  long  and  lonely  walk 
together.  I  picked  him  up  and  threw  him  upon 
my  heavy  knapsack,  his  legs  on  either  side  of  my 
neck,  and  carried  him  as  one  carries  a  sheep.  And 
then  I  began  to  lose  all  hope.  My  load  was  crush- 
ing, the  drifts  grew  more  impassable,  the  wind  more 
cruel.  It  was  already  several  degrees  below  zero. 
Down^my  legs  and  body  trickled  rivulets  of  sweat; 
and  my  outer  clothing,  sweat-soaked  for  hours,  was 
now  frozen  stiff.  We  were  off  the  road,  too,  and 
in  a  rough  country,  cut  every  few  rods  by  deep 
arroyos  running  to  the  creek.  These  were  drifted 
full;  and  a  hundred  times  I  tumbled  into  them 
without  warning,  cutting  and  bruising  us  both 
cruelly,  the  fine  snow  sifting  down  my  back  and 
chilling  my  strength;  floundering  out  again  only 
by  the  energy  of  despair,  and  struggling  on  only 
to  fall  into  another  trap.  My  strength  was  gone. 
The  enduranc  which  had  never  failed  before, 
though  often  sorely  tested,  was  at  an  end.  Nothing 


THE  MINERAL  BELT  131 

but  "bulldog"  kept  me  up.  I  knew  that  to  stop 
meant  sure  death,  and  with  unseeing  eyes,  and 
ears  ringing  with  strange  sounds,  and  mind  sink- 
ing into  a  strange,  pleasant  numbness,  I  still  strug- 
gled on,  making  a  new  footprint  less  fast  than  the 
drifting  storm  covered  the  last  one  made.  And 
then  I  stepped  in  a  burrow  and  fell  backward,  and 
could  not  rise  again;  and  there  we  lay,  done  for 
and  lost  in  the  trackless  snows  of  the  Sandias. 


IX 

PULLING  THROUGH 

A  Narrow  Escape.  —  San  Antonito.  —  A  Rich  Trail.  — 
"Poisoned  1'*  —  My  First  Experience  with  Chile. — 
A  Lesson  in  Traveller's  Courtesy. — The  Pueblo  of 
Isleta.  —  Character  of  its  Citizens. 

I  HAVE  been  in  a  great  many  dangers  of  many 
sorts  where  I  expected  to  feel  death's  hand  on  my 
shoulder  the  next  moment;  but  in  none  where 
escape  seemed  more  absolutely  impossible  than 
that  night  in  the  Sandia  snows.  And  yet  there 
was  none  of  the  usual  horror  now  —  for  that  mer- 
ciful drowsiness  of  mind  and  body  was  like  an  an- 
aesthetic against  the  protracted  dread  which  other- 
wise would  have  been  unbearable.  With  every 
breath  I  grew  more  comfortable  in  body  and  more 
dreamily  content.  The  reality  of  death  seemed 
far  off  and  hazy  —  as  though  it  concerned  only 
some  other  person.  Shadow  was  under  my  neck 
and  propped  me  up  like  a  pillow.  He  did  not 
move  and  I  thought  perhaps  he  was  dead,  but  did 
132 


PULLING  THROUGH  133 

not  look  to  see.  It  did  not  seem  to  interest  me. 
I  was  warm  and  free  from  pain,  and  my  lids  were 
very  heavy.  The  storm  was  passing,  and  on  the 
western  horizon  lay  a  tiny  belt  of  sapphire  sky. 
The  sun  was  just  entering  it,  red  and  swollen. 
Now  it  was  half  down  behind  the  black  peaks; 
and  on  a  sudden  I  saw  two  tiny  specks  moving 
across  the  sinking  disk  of  day.  The  sight  roused 
me  like  a  douche  of  ice-water.  It  was  as  though  a 
rough  and  painful  hand  had  shaken  me  savagely 
from  a  happy  dream.  There  was  an  inexpressible 
pain  in  the  awakening;  I  came  back  in  an  instant 
under  the  accumulated  tortures  of  the  day,  but 
without  volition,  and  indeed  against  my  will. 
But  there  was  no  helping  it  —  it  was  no  thought, 
or  reasoning  back,  but  a  violent  force  apparently 
quite  outside  of  me.  Yet,  of  course,  it  was  all 
within  the  strange  chamber  of  the  brain  —  for  it  was 
Hope  come  to  life  again,  and  dragging  Will  from 
his  faint.  For  those  two  specks  meant  life  ahead. 
They  had  no  shape,  for  they  were  five  miles  away; 
but  their  motion  told  the  story  to  a  hunter's  eye. 
They  might  have  been  horses,  so  far  as  visible 
form  went ;  but  they  moved  as  only  men  move  — 
and  men  they  were.  I  staggered  to  my  feet  with 
a  yell  of  joy  —  a  yell  that  started  from  deep  lungs 
but  fainted  on  powerless  lips  in  a  babyish  squeal 
that  made  me  laugh  hysterically.     I  was  wide 


134   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

awake  now  —  weak  as  a  child,  but  with  the  will 
again  supreme.  I  threw  Shadow  again  upon  my 
shoulders,  and  plunged  on  through  the  heavy 
drifts,  with  no  more  thought  of  dying.  But  it 
was  a  fearful  struggle,  and  many  a  time  I  thought 
that  I  must  drop  and  give  up,  even  with  life  so 
near.  Death  seemed  awful  now,  and  fear  helped 
my  trembling  legs.  And  at  last,  in  the  cold,  still 
night,  guided  by  a  blazing  window,  I  stuiabled 
into  the  little  hamlet  of  San  Antonito,  and  fell 
fainting  across  the  threshold  of  the  first  house. 

The  owner,  a  kindly  German  trader  named 
Walther,  dragged  me  in  and  brought  me  to  with 
hot  wine  and  with  dry  clothing  and  with  rubbing; 
and  when  at  last  I  could  help  myself  I  tried  the 
same  treatment  on  Shadow,  all  except  the  cloth- 
ing. A  roaring  fire,  a  hot,  appetizing  supper,  and 
a  delicious  bed  were  such  inconceivable  luxuries 
as  they  cannot  dream  of  who  have  never  been 
through  such  an  experience ;  and  soon  we  had  for- 
gotten the  horrors  of  the  day.  Next  morning  — 
thanks  to  perfect  physical  training  —  I  felt  all 
right  except  for  a  strange  weakness  which  did  not 
wear  off  for  some  days;  and  although  Shadow's 
ears  were  so  badly  frozen  that  they  never  fully 
recovered,  he  seemed  otherwise  in  very  good  trim. 
We  made  an  early  start,  for  I  was  growing  anx- 
ious to  reach  a  post-office;  and  there  were  several 


PULLING  THROUGH  135 

little  Mexican  hamlets  along  the  way,  in  case  we 
found  ourselves  "  outnumbered  "  by  the  snow. 

For  three  miles  we  had  a  frightful  time,  — 
steeply  up  hill  through  waist-high  snow,  —  and 
then  crossed  the  divide  and  had  a  long,  rough 
declivity  before  us.  Now,  with  every  mile,  the 
snow  was  perceptibly  less:  and  by  the  time  we 
had  passed  Canoncito  and  another  "  town  "  of  five 
houses,  our  wading  was  not  more  than  ten  inches 
deep.  That  is  not  generally  pleasant  walking,  but 
to  us  it  seemed  a  perfect  paradise.  At  Tijeras  we 
began  to  find  bare  patches,  wherein  the  mud  was 
deeper  than  were  the  alternate  drifts.  But  little 
things  like  that  made  no  impression  on  our  rising 
spirits ;  and  stopping  at  Tijeras  only  long  enough  to 
swallow  a  tortilla  and  some  tasteless  Mexican  curd 
cheese,  we  hurried  on  down  the  head  of  the  Tijeras 
Canon.  As  we  went  on  the  snow  grew  scantier, 
for  we  had  already  descended  a  couple  of  thousand 
feet,  perhaps;  and  the  alternate  snowbanks  and 
bare  gravel  bars  caused  me  a  curious  find.  A  pair 
of  oxen  had  gone  down  the  road  ahead  of  us ;  and 
I  frequently  noticed  that  whenever  they  came  to 
the  bare  ground  the  little  "stilts''  of  snow  which 
had  caked  in  their  hoofs  broke  off  —  a  trifle  to  be 
thought  of  only  because  I  was  familiar  with  the 
discomforts  of  walking  on  such  snowballs,  and 
reflected  what  a  nuisance  it  would  be  if  my  heels 


136       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

"balled  up"  as  high  as  did  those  of  the  oxen. 
Just  then  a  curious  glitter  caught  my  eye  and  I 
stooped  to  see  what  it  was.  One  of  the  hoof -cakes 
in  breaking  from  the  hoof  had  caught  a  consider- 
able ball  of  gravel  in  its  wet  clutch  and  now  lay 
half  turned  over,  leaving  a  cavity  in  the  soil 
beneath.  And  right  in  that  casual  gravel  cup  lay 
the  cause  of  the  glitter  —  a  beautiful  nugget  of 
placer  gold,  weighing  only  about  three  dollars,  but 
one  of  my  pet  "  relics  "  because  it  came  to  me  in  so 
odd  a  way. 

Just  at  sunset  we  came  to  the  two  houses  which 
comprised  Carnoe,  and  were  hospitably  taken  in  by 
the  poor  Mexican  at  the  second.  I  shall  always 
remember  Eamon  Arrera,  the  first  Mexican,  in 
whose  house  I  began  to  understand  the  universal 
hospitality  of  these  simple  folk  —  both  for  his 
courtesy  and  for  a  very  funny  acquaintance  I 
found  there.  You  may  be  sure  Shadow  and  I  were 
ravenous  by  this  time ;  and  the  prospect  of  appeas- 
ing our  appetites  looked  to  me  very  slender.  This 
fear  was  confirmed  when  Sefior  Arrera  led  me  to 
the  kitchen  for  supper.  Upon  the  lonely  looking 
table  was  only  a  cup  of  coffee,  a  dry  tortilla  (the 
everlasting  unleavened  cakes,  cooked  on  a  hot 
stone),  and  a  smoking  platter  of  apparent  stewed 
tomatoes.  Now  if  there  is  anything  which  does 
not  appeal  to  my  stomach  it  is  stewed  tomatoes ; 


PULLING  THROUGH  137 

but  I  was  too  hungry  to  be  fastidious.  There  was 
nothing  wherewith  to  eat  except  an  enormous  iron 
spoon,  and  with  starving  and  unseemly  haste  I 
ladled  a  liberal  supply  from  the  platter  to  my 
plate  and  swallowed  the  first  big  spoonful  at  a 
gulp.  And  then  I  sprang  up  with  a  howl  of  pain 
and  terror,  fully  convinced  that  these  "  treacherous 
Mexicans  "  had  assassinated  me  by  quick  poison  — 
for  I  had  very  ignorant  and  silly  notions  in  those 
days  about  Mexicans,  as  most  of  us  are  taught  by 
superficial  travellers  who  do  not  know  one  of  the 
kindliest  races  in  the  world.  My  mouth  and 
throat  were  consumed  with  living  fire,  and  my 
stomach  was  a  pit  of  boiling  torture.  I  snatched 
the  cup  of  hot  coffee  and  swallowed  half  its  con- 
tents —  which  aggravated  my  distress  ten-fold,  as 
any  of  you  will  understand  who  may  try  the 
experiment.  I  rushed  from  the  house  and  plunged 
into  a  snowbank,  biting  the  snow  to  quench  that 
horrible  inner  fire.  Poor  Arrera  followed  me  in 
astonishment,  but  smothering  his  laughter.  What 
was  the  matter  with  the  senor?  I  came  very  near 
answering  with  my  six-shooter,  but  his  sincerity 
was  plain,  and  I  listened  to  him.  Poison?  No, 
indeed,  senor.  That  was  only  chile  Colorado,  chile 
con  came,  which  liked  to  the  Mexicans  mucho  — 
and  to  many  Americanos  tambien.  And  so  it  was 
—  only  the  universal  red  pepper  of  the  Southwest, 


138   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

red  pepper  ground  coarse  and  stewed  with  little 
bits  of  meat  J  an  ounce  or  so  of  meat  to  a  pint  of 
the  reddest,  fiercest,  most  quenchless  red  pepper 
you  ever  dreamed  of  !  I  let  him  lead  me  back  to 
the  house,  but  with  no  more  thought  of  eating. 
I  felt  inwardly  raw  from  lips  to  waist,  and  great 
tears  rolled  down  my  cheeks  for  hours.  Shadow 
ate  greedily  of  the  dreadful  stuff,  but  I  slept  that 
night  on  a  stomach  which  was  empty,  but  cer- 
tainly did  not  feel  lonely,  and  a  solemn  vow  never 
again  to  look  upon  the  chile  when  it  was  Colorado. 
But  next  morning  when  I  came  out  to  breakfast 
very  faint  and  weak,  there  was  only  the  platter  of 
blood-red  stew  and  the  tortilla  and  the  coffee.  I 
gulped  down  the  leaden  tortilla,  with  frequent 
gulps  of  coffee,  and  sighed.  I  was  very  hungry. 
The  chile  con  came  smelt  very  good,  at  least. 
Perhaps  —  and  I  took  a  bare  drop  upon  the  spoon 
and  put  it  to  quaking  lips.  Hm!  Not  so  bad! 
Still  I  remembered  last  night,  and  took  two  drops. 
Rather  good!  A  spoonful  —  a  plateful  —  another 
—  in  fine,  when  I  was  done,  not  a  bit  was  left  of 
that  inflammatory  two  quarts  upon  the  platter, 
and  I  actually  wished  for  more!  The  chile 
"  habit "  is  a  curious  thing.  Simply  agonizing  at 
first  taste,  the  fiery  mess  soon  conquers  such  an 
affection  as  is  never  won  by  the  milder  viands, 
which  are  sooner  liked  and  sooner  forgotten.     I 


PULLING  THROUGH  139 

never  missed  and  longed  for  any  other  food  as  I 
did  for  chile  when  I  got  back  to  civilization. 

From  Carnoe  it  was  a  short,  dry  morning's  walk 
across  the  upland  slope  from  the  mountains  to  the 
Rio  Grande  at  the  enterprising  little  American 
city  of  Albuquerque,  where  I  stopped  a  day  to  get 
even  with  correspondence.  Coming  out  of  there  a 
bright  December  morning,  I  also  "  got  even  "  with 
something  else  —  with  an  emergency  at  which  we 
all  have  to  rebel  now  and  then,  but  which  the 
traditions  of  an  effete  civilization  do  not  always 
permit  us  to  meet  in  the  soul-satisfying  manner  I 
was  able  to,  and  for  which  I  am  sure  of  being 
envied.  There  are  few  of  us  who  have  not  felt 
an  old-Adam  yearning  to  rend  some  boor  who 
"  cut "  us  or  met  our  courtesy  with  a  brutal  cold- 
ness ;  and  in  behalf  of  sputtering  humanity  I  was 
glad  to  get  back  one  blow. 

As  I  trudged  along  the  sandy  road,  my  rifle  on 
my  shoulder,  I  met  a  middle-aged,  handsome, 
well-tended  American,  jogging  along  on  a  valuable 
horse.  In  this  native  land  of  courtesy  I  had 
learned  that  human  decency  of  the  road  which 
brightens  travel  in  a  Spanish  country.  Whoso  met 
me  greeted  me  politely  and  gave  me  good  day; 
and  now  I  did  the  same.  So  when  the  florid  per- 
sonage on  a  high  horse  came  face  to  face  with  me 
I  said :  — 


140       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTDTENT 

" Good  afternoon,  sir." 

He  looked  at  me  coldly,  and  made  no  sign. 

"Good  afternoon,  sir,"  I  repeated,  with  a  sud- 
den change  of  heart.  But  he  only  stared  with 
more  insolent  disdain. 

He  was  within  six  feet.  I  snapped  the  rifle 
forward  from  my  shoulder  and  looked  him  in  the 
eye  along  the  sights.     The  hammer  was  up. 

"Perhaps  you  did  not  hear  my  remark,  sir.  I 
said  good  afternoon  to  you." 

This  was  said  very  quietly,  but  it  had  a  remark- 
able effect.  The  ruddy  purple  cheeks  paled  sud- 
denly, and  the  pudgy  hands  grasped  spasmodically 
at  the  saddle-horn,  as  if  to  keep  from  a  fall. 

"Good  afternoon,  sir!  Good  afternoon,  sir!  A 
very  fine  afternoon,  sir!  I  hope  you  are  well, 
sir.  I  beg  pardon,  beg  pardon,  sir!  "  he  stuttered, 
and  putting  spurs  to  his  horse  was  off  like  the 
wind,  never  once  stopping  to  look  back. 

Three  hours'  walk  thence  to  the  south  along  the 
river  —  which  was  fairly  alive  with  wild  geese 
and  ducks  —  brought  us  to  the  quaint  Pueblo 
Indian  town  of  Isleta.  There  was  little  dream  in 
me,  as  we  rambled  through  the  strange  little  city 
of  adobe,  and  interviewed  its  swarthy  people,  that 
this  was  some  time  to  be  my  home  —  that  the 
quiet,  kindly  dark  faces  were  to  shine  with  neigh- 
borlinessj  and  to  look  sad  when  the  tiny  blood- 


PULLING  THROUGH  141 

vessel  in  my  brain  had  broken  anew  and  left  me 
speechless  and  helpless  for  months,  or  when  I  fell 
bored  with  buckshot  by  the  midnight  assassin, 
nor  of  all  the  other  strange  happenings  a  few  years 
were  to  bring.  But  though  there  was  no  seeing 
ahead  to  that  which  would  have  given  a  deeper 
interest,  the  historic  old  town,  which  was  the 
asylum  of  the  surviving  Spaniards  in  that  bloody 
summer  of  1680,  had  already  a  strong  attraction 
for  me.  There  were  more  line-looking  Indians 
and  more  spacious  and  admirable  houses  than  I 
had  yet  seen  —  and,  indeed,  Isleta,  which  is  the 
next  largest  of  the  nineteen  pueblos,  numbering 
over  one  thousand  one  hundred  people,  has  the 
largest  and  best  rooms,  the  largest  and  best  farms, 
and  most  extensive  orchards  and  herds  and  other 
wealth,  though  it  is  one  of  the  least  picturesque, 
since  its  buildings  are  nearly  all  of  but  one  story, 
while  in  some  pueblos  the  houses  are  six  stories 
high. 

The  pueblo  of  Isleta  is  one  of  the  strange  little 
city-republics  of  that  strange  Indian  race  which 
had  achieved  this  quaint  civilization  of  their  own 
before  Columbus  was  born.  Its  people  own  over  a 
hundred  and  fifteen  thousand  acres  of  land  under 
United  States  patent,  and  their  little  kingdom 
along  the  Rio  Grande  is  one  of  the  prettiest  places 
in  New  Mexico.     They  have  well-tended  farms, 


142       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

orchards  and  vineyards,  herds  of  cattle,  sheep,  and 
horses,  and  are  indeed  very  different  in  every  way 
from  the  average  eastern  conception  of  an  Indian. 
It  is  a  perennial  wonder  to  me  that  American 
travellers  care  so  little  to  see  the  wonders  of  their 
own  land.  They  find  abroad  nothing  more  pic- 
turesque, nothing  more  marvellous,  in  scenery  or 
in  man,  than  they  could  easier  see  within  the 
wonderland  of  the  Southwest,  with  its  strange 
landscapes,  its  noble  ruins  of  a  prehistoric  past, 
and  the  astounding  customs  of  its  present  aborig- 
ines. A  pueblo  ceremonial  dance  is  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  sights  to  be  witnessed  anywhere; 
and  there  are  many  other  customs  no  less  worth 
seeing. 

I  have  lived  now  in  Isleta  for  four  years,  with 
its  Indians  for  my  only  neighbors;  and  better 
neighbors  I  never  had  and  never  want.  They  are 
unmeddlesome  but  kindly,  thoughtful,  and  loyal, 
and  wonderfully  interesting.  Their  endless  and 
beautiful  folklore,  their  quaint  and  often  astonish- 
ing customs,  and  their  startling  ceremonials  have 
made  a  fascinating  study.  To  relate  even  the 
small  part  of  these  things  which  I  have  learned 
would  take  volumes ;  but  one  of  the  first  and  least 
secret  customs  I  witnessed  may  be  described  here. 
The  Chinese  feed  their  dead,  beginning  with  a 
grand  banquet  which  precedes  the  hearse,  and  is 


PULLING  THROUGH  143 

spread  upon  the  newly  covered  grave.  The  Pue- 
blos do  not  thus.  The  funeral  is  decked  forth 
with  no  baked  meats ;  and  the  banquet  for  all  the 
dead  together  is  given  once  a  year  in  a  ceremonial 
by  itself.  The  burials  take  place  from  their 
Christian  church;  and  the  only  remarkable  cere- 
monies are  those  performed  in  the  room  where 
the  soul  left  its  clay  tenement.  All  that  is  a 
secret  ceremony,  however,  and  may  be  seen  by  no 
stranger.  But  all  are  free  to  witness  the  strange 
rites  of  the  Day  of  the  Dead. 


THE  FIESTA  DE  LOS  MUERTOS 

A  Day  of  the  Dead  in  a  Pueblo  Town. — The  Appetite  of  a 
Departed  Indian.  —  The  Biscuits  of  the  Angels. — An 
Acrobatic  Bell.  —  A  Windfall  for  the  Padre. 

To-day  the  aborigines  who  sleep  nine  feet  deep 
in  the  bosom  of  the  bare  gravel  graveyard  in  front 
of  the  quaint  church  of  the  pueblo  of  Isleta  have 
the  first  square  meal  they  have  enjoyed  in  a  twelve- 
month; for  to-day  the  Day  of  the  Dead  is  cele- 
brated with  considerable  pomp  and  ceremony.  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  death  somewhat  dulls  the  edge 
of  an  Indian's  naturally  robust  appetite,  else  so 
protracted  a  fast  would  surely  cause  him  incon- 
venience. But  the  rations  are  generous  when  they 
do  come. 

The  bustle  of  preparation  for  the  Fiesta  de  los 
Muertos  has  been  upon  the  pueblo  for  several  days, 
in  a  sort  of  domestic  crescendo.  While  the  men 
have  been  —  as  usual  in  the  fall  —  looking  rather 
devotedly  upon  the  new  wine  when  it  is  a  sallow 
144 


THE  FIESTA   DE  LOS  MUERTOS  145 

red,  and  loading  themselves  by  day  to  go  off  in 
vocal  pyrotechnics  at  night,  when  they  meander 
arm  in  arm  about  the  village  singing  an  aboriginal 
"won't  go  until  morning,"  the  women  have  been 
industriously  employed  at  home.  They  never  seem 
to  yearn  for  the  flowing  bowl,  and  keep  steadfastly 
sober  throughout  the  temptations  of  wine-making, 
always  ready  to  go  out  and  collar  a  too  obstreperous 
spouse  and  persuade  him  home.  It  is  well  for  the 
family  purse  that  this  is  so.  We  have  a  governor 
this  year  who  is  muy  bravo,  and  woe  to  the  con- 
vivialist  who  lifts  his  ululation  where  Don  Vicente 
can  hear  him,  or  who  starts  in  to  smash  things 
where  the  old  man's  eagle  eye  will  light  upon  him. 
In  a  brief  space  of  time  two  stalwart  alguazils  will 
loom  up  on  the  scene,  armed  with  a  peculiar  adjust- 
able wooden  yoke  —  a  mammoth  handcuff  in  design 
—  which  is  fitted  around  the  culprit's  neck,  and  off 
he  is  dragged  by  the  handles  to  the  little  'dobe  jail, 
there  to  repent  of  his  folly  until  he  has  added  a 
dollar  or  two  to  Don  Vicente's  treasury. 

For  the  last  three  days  the  dark  little  store  of 
the  trader  has  been  besieged  by  a  crowd  of  women, 
bearing  fat  brown  babes  in  the  shawls  upon  their 
backs,  and  upon  their  erect  heads  sacks  of  corn  or 
wheat,  or  under  their  arms  the  commonest  fractional 
currency  of  the  pueblo  —  the  sheepskin,  worth  ten 
or  fifteen  cents  according  to  weight.     Some  bring 


146       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

coin  of  the  realm,  for  this  is  one  of  the  wealthiest 
pueblos  as  well  as  the  largest.  Their  purchases 
were  sugar,  flour,  lard,  candles,  calicoes,  and  occa- 
sionally chocolate,  all  with  festal  intent. 

For  three  days,  too,  the  queer  mud  bee-hives  of 
ovens  outside  the  houses  have  been  "running  to 
their  fullest  capacity  "  all  over  town.  Betimes  in 
the  morning,  the  prudent  housewife  would  be  seen 
instigating  a  generous  and  persistent  fire  in  her 
homo.  Then,  when  the  thick  adobe  walls  were 
hot  enough,  she  would  rake  out  the  coals  and  ashes, 
and  swab  the  interior  with  a  wet  rag  tied  to  a  pole. 
Next,  a  brief  disappearance  into  the  house,  and  a 
prompt  emergence  with  a  broad,  clean  board,  cov- 
ered with  the  most  astounding  freaks  of  ingenuity 
in  dough.  In  most  things  the  Pueblo  appears 
unimaginative  enough  —  though  this  is  a  deceptive 
appearance  —  but  when  it  comes  to  sculpturing 
feast-day  bread  and  cakes  the  inventive  talent  dis- 
played outdoes  the  wildest  delirium  of  a  French 
pastry-cook.  Those  culinary  monstrosities  could 
be  safely  worshipped  without  infringing  the  Deca- 
logue, for  they  are  like  unto  nothing  that  is  in  the 
earth,  nor  in  the  heavens  above  the  earth,  nor  in 
the  waters  under  the  earth.  Their  shapes  always 
remind  me  of  Ex-Treasurer  Spinner's  signature  — 
and  they  are  quite  as  unapproachable. 

Having  been  placed  in  the  oven,  the  door  of 


THE  FIESTA   DE   LOS   MUERTOS  147 

which  was  then  closed  with  a  big,  flat  stone,  and 
sealed  with  mud,  the  baking  remained  there  its 
allotted  time,  and  then,  crisp  and  delicious  —  for 
there  are  few  better  breadmakers  than  these  Pue- 
blos—  it  was  stowed  away  in  the  inner  room  to 
await  its  ceremonial  use. 

Yesterday  began  more  personal  preparations  for 
the  important  event.  Go  into  whatever  dooryard 
you  would,  3^ou  found  anywhere  from  one  to  half  a 
dozen  dusky  but  comely  matrons  and  maids,  bend- 
ing over  brightly  painted  iinajas  and  giving  careful 
ablution  to  their  soft  black  hair.  Inside  the  house, 
mayhap,  gay  red  calicoes  were  being  deftly  stitched 
into  simple  garments,  and  soft  white  buckskins 
being  cut  into  the  long  strips  to  be  wound  into  the 
characteristic  female  "  boot."  The  men  were  doing 
little,  save  to  lend  their  moral  support.  But  late 
last  night,  little  bands  of  them  wandered  jovially 
over  the  pueblo,  pausing  at  the  door  of  every  house 
wherein  they  found  a  light,  and  singing  a  pious 
appeal  to  all  the  saints  to  protect  the  inmates  — 
who  were  expected  to  reward  this  intercession  by 
gifts  of  bread,  meat,  coffee,  tobacco,  or  something 
else,  to  the  prayerful  serenade  rs. 

Thus  anticipated,  the  Day  of  the  Dead  dawned 
clear  and  warm.  As  the  sun  crawled  above  the 
ragged  crest  of  the  Sandias,  the  gray  old  sacristan, 
in  shirt  and  calzoncillos  of  spotless  white,  climbed 


148       A  TRAMP   ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

the  crazy  staircase  to  the  roof  of  the  church  and 
assaulted  the  bell,  which  has  had  comparatively 
few  breathing-spells  the  rest  of  the  day.  The  ring- 
ing of  the  church-bell  of  Isleta  is  an  experience 
that  is  worth  a  long  journey  to  enjoy.  The  bells 
hang  in  two  incongruous  wooden  towers,  perched 
upon  the  front  corners  of  the  huge  adobe  church. 
There  are  no  ropes,  and  tongues  would  be  a  work 
of  supererogation.  The  ringer,  stepping  into  the 
belfry  through  a  broken  blind,  grasps  a  hammer  in 
his  hand,  and  hits  the  bell  a  tentative  rap  as  if  to 
see  whether  it  is  going  to  strike  back.  Encouraged 
by  finding  that  it  does  not,  he  gives  it  another 
thump  after  a  couple  of  seconds;  then  another; 
then,  growing  interested,  he  whales  it  three  times 
in  half  as  many  seconds ;  then,  after  a  wee  pause, 
he  yields  to  his  enthusiasm,  rushes  upon  the  bell, 
drubs  it  in  a  wild  tattoo,  curries  it  down  from 
crown  to  rim  with  a  multiplicative  scrub,  and 
thenceforth  devotes  himself  to  making  the  greatest 
possible  number  of  sound-waves  to  the  second. 
As  a  bell-persecutor,  he  has  no  superiors. 

All  this  feverish  eloquence  of  the  bell  had  no 
visible  effect  for  awhile.  The  people  evidently 
knew  its  excitable  temperament,  and  were  in  no 
hurry  to  answer  its  clatter.  But  by  nine  o'clock 
there  was  a  general  awakening.  Along  the  aim- 
less "  street "  across  the  big  flat  plaza,  long  lines  of 


THE  FIESTA  DE   LOS   MUEKTOS  149 

women  began  to  come  churchward  in  single  file. 
Each  bore  upon  her  head  a  big,  flaring  basket  — 
the  rush  chiquihtiite  of  home  make,  or  the  elegantly- 
woven  Apache  jlcara  —  heaped  high  with  enough, 
toothsome  viands  to  make  the  soundest  sleeper  in 
the  campo  santo  forget  his  fear  of  fasting.  Each 
woman  was  dressed  in  her  best.  Her  moccasins 
and  queer  aldermanic  "boots"  shone  bright  and 
spotless ;  her  dark  skirt  of  heavy  home-woven  stuff 
was  new,  and  showed  at  its  ending  by  the  knee  a 
faint  suggestion  of  snowy  white ;  her  costliest  cor- 
als and  turquoise  and  silver  beads  hung  from  her 
neck;  the  tapalo  which  covered  all  her  head  except 
the  face  was  of  the  gayest  pattern.  One  young  girl 
had  a  turkey-red  table-cloth  for  a  head-shawl,  and 
another  an  American  piano-cover  of  crimson  with 
old  gold  embroidery. 

Marching  through  the  opening  in  the  high  adobe 
wall  which  surrounds  the  graveyard,  each  woman 
went  to  the  spot  whose  gravel  covered  beloved 
bones,  set  her  basket  down  there,  planted  a  lot  of 
candles  around  it,  lighted  them,  and  remained 
kneeling  patiently  behind  her  offering.  It  was  a 
quaint  and  impressive  sight  there  under  the  bright 
New  Mexico  sun  —  the  great  square,  shut  in  by  the 
low  adobe  houses  (for  Isleta  has  none  of  the  ter- 
raced houses  of  the  more  remote  pueblos),  the  huge 
adobe  church  filling  the  space  on  the  north,  with 


160       A  TRAMP   ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

its  inadequate  steeples,  its  two  dark  arches,  and  its 
long  dwindle  into  the  quarters  of  the  priest;  the 
indiscriminate  graveyard,  whose  flat  slope  showed 
only  the  three  latest  of  its  unnumbered  hundreds 
of  graves;  the  hundred  kneeling  women  weeping 
quietly  under  their  shawls  and  tending  the  candles 
around  their  offerings  while  the  dead  ate  to  their 
heart's  content,  according  to  the  belief  of  these 
simple  folk. 

The  big,  clumsy  doors  of  the  church  were  open, 
and  presently  some  of  the  newcomers  entered  with 
their  basket  offerings,  crossing  themselves  at  the 
door,  and  disposed  their  baskets,  their  candles,  and 
their  knees  at  certain  points  along  the  rude  floor  of 
loose  boards  laid  flat  on  smooth  adobe.  It  was  not 
at  random  that  they  took  these  scattered  positions. 
These  were  they  whose  relatives  had  enjoyed  the 
felicity  of  being  buried  under  the  church  floor ;  and 
each  knelt  over  the  indistinguishable  resting-place 
of  her  loved  and  lost.  The  impressive  mass  was 
prefaced  by  a  short,  business-like  talk  from  the  new 
priest.  It  had  always  been  the  custom  for  the 
women  to  wail  loudly  and  incessantly  over  the 
graves,  all  through  mass;  but  the  new  padre 
intended  to  inaugurate  a  reform  right  here.  He 
had  told  them  the  Sunday  before  that  there  must  be 
no  " keening "  during  divine  service;  and  now  he 
gave  them  another  word  of  warning  on  the  same 


THE  FIESTA  DB  LOS  MUERTOS  151 

subject.     If  they  did  not  maintain  proper  quiet 
during  mass  he  would  not  bless  the  graves. 

The  warning  was  effective,  and  the  mass  went  on 
amid  respectful  silence.  A  group  of  Mexican 
women  kneeling  near  the  altar  rail,  sang  timidly 
in  pursuit  of  the  little  organ,  with  which  they 
never  quite  caught  up.  The  altar  flared  with 
innumerable  candles  which  twinkled  on  ancient 
saints  and  modern  chromos,  on  mirrors  and  tinsel 
and  paper  flowers.  Through  the  three  square, 
high,  dirty  windows  in  the  five-foot  adobe  wall  the 
sunlight  strained,  lighting  up  vaguely  the  smooth 
round  vigas  and  strange  brackets  overhead;  the 
kneeling  figures,  the  heaped-up  baskets,  and  the 
flickering  candles  on  the  floor  below.  Near  the 
door,  under  the  low  gallery,  stood  a  respectful 
knot  of  men,  Indians  and  Mexicans.  The  gray- 
headed  sacristan  and  his  assistant  shufiled  hither 
and  thither  with  eagle  eyes,  watching  the  candles 
of  the  women  lest  they  burn  too  low  and  kindle  the 
floor ;  and  now  and  then  stooping  to  snuff  out  some 
threatening  wick  with  their  bare  fingers  and  an  air 
of  satisfaction.  Sometimes  they  were  a  little  too 
zealous,  and  put  out  candles  which  might  safely 
have  burned  three  or  four  minutes  longer.  But  no 
sooner  were  their  backs  turned  than  the  watchful 
proprietress  of  that  candle  would  reach  over  and 
relight  it.     There  should  be  no  tallow  wasted. 


152       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

At  last  the  mass  was  over  and  the  padre  went 
into  the  retiring  room  to  change  his  vestments, 
the  women  and  baskets  retaining  their  positions. 
Directly  he  reappeared,  and  the  sacristan  tottered 
beside  him  with  a  silver  bowl  of  holy  water. 
Stopping  in  front  of  the  woman  and  basket  nearest 
the  altar,  the  priest  read  a  long  prayer  for  the 
repose  of  the  soul  over  whose  long-deserted  tene- 
ment she  knelt,  and  then  sprinkled  holy  water 
thitherward,  at  once  moving  on  to  the  next.  The 
woman  thus  satisfied  rose,  put  the  basket  on  her 
head,  and  disappeared  in  the  long  side  passage  lead- 
ing to  the  priest's  quarters,  while  the  ayudante 
thumbed  out  her  candles  and  tossed  them  into  a 
wooden  soap  box  which  he  carried.  So  went  the 
slow  round  throughout  the  church,  and  then 
through  the  hundred  patient  kneeling  waiters  on 
the  gravel  of  the  campo  santo  outside.  As  soon  as 
a  grave  was  blessed,  the  woman,  the  candles,  and 
the  basket  of  goodies  vanished  elsewhere,  and  the 
padre's  storeroom  began  to  swell  with  fatness. 
The  baskets  were  as  notable  for  neat  arrangements 
as  for  lavish  heaping.  A  row  of  ears  of  corn  stand- 
ing upright  within  the  rim  of  the  basket  formed 
a  sort  of  palisade  which  doubled  its  capacity. 
Within  this  cereal  stockade  were  artistically 
deployed  those  indescribable  contortions  in  bread 
and  cake,  funny  little  "turnovers  "  with  a  filling  of 


THE  FIESTA  DB  LOS  MUBRTOS  153 

stewed  dried  peaches ;  half  dried  bunches  of  grapes 
whose  little  withered  sacks  of  condensed  sunlight 
and  sweetness  were  like  raisins,  and  still  display- 
ing the  knots  of  grass  by  which  they  had  dangled 
from  the  rafters;  watermelons,  whole  or  sliced; 
apples,  quinces  and  peaches,  onions,  and  occasion- 
ally candy  and  chocolate.  The  beauty  of  it  all  was, 
that  after  the  dear  departed  had  gorged  their  fill, 
there  was  just  as  much  left  for  the  padre,  whose 
perquisite  the  remainder  invariably  is.  He  treated 
me  to  a  peep  into  his  storeroom  in  the  evening, 
and  it  was  a  remarkable  sight.  Fully  two  tons  of 
these  edible  offerings,  assorted  as  to  their  kinds, 
filled  the  floor  with  enormous  heaps,  and  outside, 
in  the  long  portal^  was  enough  blue,  and  red,  and 
white  corn  to  fill  an  army  of  horses.  Bread  led 
the  list;  and  as  the  liberal  proportion  of  lard  in 
this  bread  keeps  it  good  for  months,  the  padre's 
housekeepers  will  not  need  to  bake  for  a  long  time 
to  come. 

With  the  blessings  of  the  last  grave,  the  services 
of  the  Fiesta  de  los  Muertos  were  over,  and  the 
population  settled  down  to  the  enjoyment  of  a  rare 
repose  —  for  they  are  a  very  industrious  people  and 
always  busy,  save  on  holidays,  with  their  farms, 
their  orchards,  their  houses,  and  other  matters. 


XI 

ACROSS  THE  RIO  GRANDE 

Twenty  Miles  of  Moss  Agates.  —  A  Night  with  the  Cow- 
boys. —  Shooting  a  Tarantula.  —  Christmas  at  the  Sec- 
tion-House.—  A  Board-Hunt.  —  The  Wild  Dance  at 
Laguna.  —  The  City  of  the  Cliff.  —  Acoma  and  its  Peo- 
ple. —  Buried  Treasures.  —  A  $70,000  Seat. 

At  Isleta  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Eailroad  has 
its  junction  with  the  Atchison,  Topeka  and  Santa 
Y4f  and  I  was  to  follow  the  general  line  of  the 
former  road,  which  gives  access  to  the  most  won- 
derful and  the  least-known  corners  of  America. 
I  had  a  very  jolly  night  singing  college  songs  and 
chatting  with  one  of  the  operators  at  the  little 
junction  office,  —  a  brave,  gentle  boy  who  was  fight- 
ing off  consumption  here,  and  who  died  at  last, 
far  from  his  eastern  home>  —  and  next  morning 
turned  my  back  to  the  pleasant  Rio  Grande  Valley 
and  climbed  the  long  volcanic  hills  to  the  west. 
It  was  a  day  of  surprises  to  me.  At  the  top  of 
the  ten-mile  divide  were  many  extinct  craters, 
164 


ACROSS   THE   HIO  GRANDE  155 

some  of  which  I  explored,  and  their  work  of  for- 
gotten ages  marked  the  whole  surrounding  country. 
All  day  long  I  was  walking  over  pebbles  and 
stones  which  are  almost  treasures  in  the  East  — 
twenty  miles  of  moss  agates!  I  picked  them  up 
at  every  rod  or  so  —  nuggets  from  the  size  of  a 
bean  to  larger  than  my  head,  and  many  of  them 
most  beautiful  specimens.  There  was  also  much 
petrified  wood  —  gorgeous  chips  of  hardest  agate, 
of  all  colors,  and  still  plainly  showing  the  struc- 
ture of  the  plant  that  had  turned  to  stone  uncounted 
thousands  of  years  ago.  When,  late  at  night,  I 
reached  Kio  Puerco  (the  "  Dirty  Eiver ")  my  load 
weighed  fifty -one  pounds,  —  thanks  to  the  peck  or 
so  of  agates  in  the  capacious  pockets  of  my  duck 
coat,  —  and  I  was  glad  to  see  the  end  of  that  heavy 
thirty-five  miles.  My  bed  of  a  blanket  on  the 
board  floor  of  the  station  —  the  only  accommoda- 
tions, nine  times  out  of  ten,  for  the  next  nine  hun- 
dred miles  —  was  luxury  enough  after  such  a 
playing  at  pack-beast. 

The  Eio  Puerco  is  well  named,  and  is  a  type  of 
many  of  the  strange  streams  of  the  Southwest. 
There  are  in  New  Mexico  and  Arizona  and  the 
desert  border  of  the  Garden  State  of  States  some 
clear  and  beautiful  brooks  of  pure,  delicious  water, 
sealed  with  the  crowning  approval  of  trout;  and 
there    are    as    many   sluggish,    slimy,    villainous 


156       A  TItAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONtlNENT 

streams  whose  alkaline  waters  are  rank  poison 
which  no  thing  can  drink  nor  life  inhabit,  and  the 
E/io  Puerco  is  one  of  the  latter.  It  is  over  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  miles  in  length  and  flows 
mostly  through  one  of  the  most  untravelled  por- 
tions of  New  Mexico,  —  a  tiny  brook  whose  volume 
is  no  more  than  that  of  a  five-mile  rivulet  in  the 
East,  — watering  and  making  green  a  pretty  thread 
of  a  valley,  but  itself  accurst. 

The  next  day's  walk  was  short,  but  very  weari- 
some with  that  crushing  load,  and  at  the  sight  of 
San  Jose  —  a  "town"  of  a  section-house  and  a 
ranch-house  —  I  decided  to  do  no  more  without 
rest.  A  long-haired  cowboy,  with  a  twenty-pound 
buffalo  gun  across  the  saddle,  came  loping  up  as  I 
drew  near,  greeted  me  pleasantly,  made  fast 
friends  with  suspicious  Shadow,  and  bade  me 
over  to  the  ranch-house  for  the  night.  My  even- 
ing in  the  wind-swept  shanty  with  him  and  the 
three  other  cowboys  then  at  headquarters  —  the 
rest  being  scattered  over  the  many  leagues  of 
the  range  —  was  a  very  pleasant  one.  Cowboy 
hospitality  is  always  genuine,  though  rough,  and 
one  who  has  trouble  with  these  wild  riders  has 
only  himself  to  thank.  Here  I  got  rid  of  one  of 
the  most  troublesome  parts  of  my  load  —  trading 
my  venerable  and  battered  Winchester  rifle  for  a 
splendid  new  Colt's  six-shooter  with  all  its  trap- 


•        ACROSS  THE  BIO  GRANDE  157 

pings  —  a  perfect  weapon  which  has  since  seen  me 
through  many  a  '^  close  call."  The  exchange  was 
a  most  welcome  relief,  and  as  for  effectiveness,  I 
soon  got  so  handy  with  the  new  arm  that  there 
was  no  need  for  the  rifle. 

On  the  road  to  El  Eito  next  day  I  met  two 
belated  foes,  my  encounter  with  whom  illustrates 
the  curious  and  unreasoning  prejudices  which  are 
born  in  us  and  will  not  begone.  One  was  a  slug- 
gish, half -frozen  rattlesnake,  whose  head  I  incon- 
tinently hacked  off  with  unalarmed  hunting-knife. 
The  other  was  a  huge,  dark,  hairy  tarantula  —  or, 
to  be  more  exact,  the  bush  spider,  popularly  called 
tarantula.  He  was  lively  enough,  and  jumped  at 
me  a  foot  at  a  lift.  Within  a  yard  of  him  I  would 
not  have  come  for  worlds.  I  cut  his  hideous  body 
in  twain  from  ten  feet  away  with  a  careful  bullet 
from  my  forty-four.  Snakes  I  have  always  rather 
liked  and  never  had  the  remotest  fear  of;  but  that 
inborn  horror  of  spiders  I  have  never  been  able  to 
shake  off  —  though  in  disgust  at  the  weakness  I 
forced  myself  for  two  years  to  catch  and  kill  in  my 
bare  fingers  every  spider  I  found  and  suffered  in- 
conceivably in  doing  it.  But  to  this  day  a  cold 
chill  runs  down  me  whenever  I  come  suddenly  upon 
one  of  these  most  devilish  of  created  things. 

It  was  Christmas  Eve  when  we  reached  El  Eito 
and  its  lone  section-house,  and  I  felt  a  bit  of  hoi- 


158   A  TKAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

lowness  under  my  heart.  This  did  not  seem  par- 
ticularly Christmas-like  to  a  graduate  from  the  old 
New  England  fire-place,  with  its  pendent  stock- 
ings, and  from  the  glorious  Christmas  dinner  of 
the  old  home.  But  there  was  no  use  in  moping 
about  it,  and  I  strode  up  to  the  section-house  to 
the  usual  wretched  supper.  But  there  was  a  con- 
siderable surprise  for  me.  The  section  "boss,"  a 
tall,  angular,  good-natured  Pennsylvanian  named 
Phillips,  seemed  to  "  take  a  shine  "  to  me  at  once, 
and  before  supper  was  over  he  had  invited  me  to 
stay  over  to-morrow  and  eat  Christmas  dinner 
with  them.  The  "boys"  had  "chipped  in,"  and 
sent  to  Albuquerque  for  turkey  and  cranberries, 
and  all  the  other  blessed  old  standbys,  and  it  was 
going  to  be  "the  real  thing."  I  made  a  feeble 
remark  about  being  in  haste  to  reach  San  Mateo, 
but  Phillips  suppressed  me  at  once.  "  Tain't  every 
day  we  kill  a  pig  and  give  the  brustles  to  the  poor," 
he  said,  "and  you^ll  just  stay  and  eat ! " 

And  stay  I  did.  And  what  with  a  visit  to  the 
little  Indian  pueblo  near  by,  and  a  successful  hunt 
for  coyotes,  and  a  memorable  dinner,  it  was,  after 
all,  a  rather  merry  Christmas  for  Shadow  and  me, 
with  our  rough  hosts,  in  the  dirty  little  section- 
house  among  the  lava  crags  of  El  Rito. 

"  Stumpin'  it  to  Calif orny,  hey  ?  "  ejaculated  the 
section-boss  for  the  twentieth  time,  as  though  the 


ACROSS  THE  RIO  GRANDE  159 

idea  was  a  burr  in  his  mind.  And  then  at  last  he 
got  beyond  the  exclamation  and  suddenly  cried, 
"  Banged  if  I  don^t  stump  it  with  you !  " 

I  looked  at  him  in  mild  astonishment,  but  he 
was  as  good  as  his  word.  That  very  night  he 
threw  up  his  position,  made  arrangements  about 
his  pay  checks,  and  packed  in  a  bandanna  hand- 
kerchief what  he  wished  for  the  journey,  giving 
the  rest  of  his  scant  belongings  to  the  laborers. 
He  did  not  ask  whether  I  desired  his  company, 
nor  did  it  seem  necessary  to  advise  him  against 
the  undertaking  —  for  there  was  little  likelihood 
that  one  of  his  temperament  would  carry  this  sud- 
den resolve  very  far. 

That  evening  I  took  time  for  a  little  hunting  on 
a  plan  which  caused  great  wonderment  to  Phillips 
and  his  men.  The  country  was  swarming  with 
coyotes,  which  were  feasting  on  the  countless  dead 
cattle;  but  it  was  very  hard  to  get  within  rifle- 
shot of  the  cunning  brutes.  I  particularly  wanted 
another  skin  just  then;  and  determined  to  get  it 
by  a  board-hunt.  Phillips  got  me  a  smooth  board, 
an  inch  auger,  and  some  lard,  at  my  request,  and  I 
soon  made  a  lapboard.  A  dozen  auger-holes, 
bored  almost  through,  were  filled  with  lard,  in 
which  were  a  few  grains  of  strychnine,  and  then 
the  surface  of  the  board  was  similarly  smeared. 
Carrying  this  peculiar  trap  half  a  mile  from  the 


160       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

house,  I  set  it  in  a  pass  between  the  cliffs,  and 
came  back  to  our  Christmas  dinner.  Had  I  put 
out  a  piece  of  poisoned  meat,  Mr.  Coyote  would 
have  picked  it  up  and  trotted  off  to  die,  of  course, 
but  very  likely  in  the  next  county,  where  he  would 
not  enrich  me.  But  any  carnivorous  animal  that 
comes  to  a  lapboard  stays  there  —  licking  the  lard 
first  from  the  level,  and  then  squeezing  its  tongue 
into  the  holes  for  what  is  there,  until  the  sudden 
spasm  comes  and  it  is  too  late  to  run  for  water. 
Sure  enough,  next  morning  at  sunrise  the  largest 
£nd  handsomest  coyote  I  ever  saw,  before  or  since, 
was  lying  with  his  nose  not  six  inches  from  the 
fatal  board.  I  "cased"  him  —  that  is,  took  off 
the  whole  skin  without  a  cut,  pulling  the  whole 
body  through  the  mouth  —  to  the  utter  stupefac- 
tion of  the  Mexican  laborers,  who  would  not 
believe  such  a  thing  possible.  That  is  the  hardest 
way  to  skin  an  animal,  but  it  is  the  only  way  to 
save  the  whole  pelt  without  the  serious  waste  from 
the  "tags,"  which  come  where  a  skin  is  "pegged 
out"  to  dry.  The  hide,  which  comes  off  like  a 
tight  glove,  inside  out,  should  be  re-turned,  so 
that  the  flesh  side  is  within,  and  then  stuffed  with 
straw  or  any  substance  which  will  fill  it  out 
plumply  and  still  allow  a  slight  circulation  of  air 
within.  When  it  is  perfectly  dry  it  can  be  slit 
from  chin  to  tail  with  a  sharp  knife,  and  there  you 


ACROSS  THE  RIO  GRANDE  161 

have  a  perfect  and  sightly  pelt.  It  took  me  three 
hours  of  grubbing  in  the  short,  dry  buffalo  grass  to 
get  enough  to  fill  the  coyote's  suit,  but  the  skin, 
which  I  have  yet,  was  fine  enough  to  pay  for  the 
trouble. 

At  10.30  Phillips  bade  good-bye  to  El  Eito,  and 
we  started  off  together.  At  noon  we  came  to 
Laguna,  where  the  Indians  were  holding  their 
remarkable  holiday  dances  —  as  the  wild  yells  that 
came  down  the  wind  apprised  us  miles  away.  On 
the  bridge  which  spans  the  creek  near  the  pueblo, 
Shadow,  bewildered  by  these  howls,  suddenly 
turned  back  to  me  for  protection.  The  section- 
men  were  pushing  the  heavy  handcar  against  the 
wind,  and  in  his  fright  he  collided  with  it.  One 
wheel  ran  over  him,  derailing  the  car;  and  there 
he  was,  half  dangling  between  the  ties  and  half 
entangled  in  the  wheels.  I  feared  he  was  done 
for;  but  when  we  pulled  him  out  from  the  wreck 
he  was  uninjured.  "  A  fool  fer  loock ! "  com- 
mented the  stumpy  Irishman;  and  I  agreed  with 
him. 

Laguna  is  the  most  picturesque  of  the  pueblos 
that  are  easily  accessible ;  and  as  the  railroad  runs 
at  the  very  base  of  the  great  dome  of  rock  upon 
which  the  quaint,  'terraced  houses  are  huddled, 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  reaching  it.  On  the  sum- 
mit  of   the    rock  is    the   plaza    or  large   public 


162       A  TEA]SIP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

square,  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  the  tall  house- 
walls  and  entered  only  by  three  narrow  alleys. 
We  hastened  up  the  sloping  hill  by  one  of  the 
strange  footpaths  which  the  patient  feet  of  two 
centuries  have  worn  eight  inches  deep  in  the  solid 
rock,  and  entered  the  plaza.  It  was  a  remarkable 
sight.  The  house-tops  were  brilliant  with  a  gor- 
geously apparelled  throng  of  Indian  spectators, 
watching  with  breathless  interest  the  strange  scene 
at  their  feet.  Up  and  down  the  plaza's  smooth 
floor  of  solid  rock  the  thirty  dancers  were  leaping, 
marching,  wheeling,  in  perfect  rhythm  to  the  wild 
chant  of  the  chorus,  and  to  the  pom,  pom,  of  a 
huge  drum.  Their  faces  were  weirdly  besmeared 
with  vermilion  and  upon  their  heads  were  war- 
bonnets  of  eagle  feathers.  Some  carried  bows  and 
arrows,  some  elaborate  tomahawks,  —  though  that 
was  never  a  characteristic  weapon  of  the  Pueblo 
Indians,  —  some  lances  and  shields,  and  a  few 
revolvers  and  Winchesters.  They  were  stripped 
to  the  waist  and  wore  curious  skirts  of  buckskin 
reaching  to  the  knee,  ponderous  silver  belts,  —  of 
which  some  dancers  had  two  or  three  apiece,  —  and 
an  endless  profusion  of  silver  bracelets  and  rings, 
silver,  turquoise,  and  coral  necklaces  and  ear-rings, 
and  sometimes  beautifully  beaded  buckskin  leg- 
gins.  The  captain  or  leader  had  a  massive  neck- 
lace of  the  terrible  claws  of  the  grizzly  bear.     He 


ACROSS  THE  EIO  GRANDE  163 

was  a  superb  Apollo  in  bronze ;  fully  six  feet  three 
inches  tall,  and  straight  as  an  arrow.  His  long 
raven  hair  was  done  up  in  a  curious  wad  on  the 
top  of  his  head  and  stuck  full  of  eagle  feathers. 
His  leggins  were  the  most  elaborate  I  ever  saw  — 
one  solid  mass  behind  of  elegant  bead-work.  He 
carried  in  his  hand  a  long,  steel-pointed  lance, 
decorated  with  many  gay-colored  ribbons,  and  he 
used  this  much  after  the  fashion  of  a  drum-major. 
When  we  first  arrived  upon  the  scene,  and  for 
ialf  an  hour  thereafter,  the  dancers  were  formed 
in  a  rectangle,  standing  five  abreast  and  six  deep, 
jumping  up  and  down  in  a  sort  of  rudimentary 
clog-step,  keeping  faultless  time  and  ceaselessly 
chanting  to  the  "  music  "  of  two  small  bass  drums. 
The  words  were  not  particularly  thrilling,  consist- 
ing chiefly,  it  seemed  to  my  untutored  ear,  of  "  Ho ! 
o-o-o-h!  Ho!  Ho!  Ah!  Ho!"  but  the  chant  was  a 
genuine  melody,  though  different  in  all  ways  from 
any  tune  you  will  hear  elsewhere.  Then  the  leader 
gave  a  yelp  like  a  dog,  and  started  off  over  the 
smooth  rock  floor,  the  whole  chorus  following  in 
single  file,  leaping  high  into  the  air  and  coming 
down,  first  on  one  foot  and  then  on  the  other,  one 
knee  stiff  and  the  other  bent,  and  still  singing  at  the 
top  of  their  lungs.  No  matter  how  high  they 
jumped,  they  all  came  down  in  unison  with  each 
other  and  with  the  tap  of  the  rude  drums.     No  clog- 


164       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

dancer  could  keep  more  perfect  time  to  music  than 
do  these  queer  leapers.  The  evolutions  of  their 
"grand  march"  are  too  intricate  for  description, 
and  would  completely  bewilder  a  fashionable  leader 
of  the  German.  They  wound  around  in  snake-like 
figures,  now  and  then  falling  into  strange  but  regu- 
lar groups,  never  getting  confused,  never  missing 
a  step  of  their  laborious  leaping.  And  such  endur- 
ance of  lung  and  muscle!  They  keep  up  their 
jumping  and  shouting  all  day  and  all  night.  Dur- 
ing the  whole  of  this  serpentine  dance,  the  drums 
and  the  chorus  kept  up  their  clamor,  while  the 
leader  punctuated  the  chant  by  a  series  of  wild 
whoops  at  regular  intervals.  All  the  time  too, 
while  their  legs  were  busy,  their  arms  were  not  less 
so.  They  kept  brandishing  aloft  their  various 
weapons,  in  a  significant  style  that  "  would  make 
a  man  hunt  tall  grass  if  he  saw  them  out  on  the 
plains,"  as  Phillips  declared.  And  as  for  atten- 
tive audiences,  no  American  star  ever  had  such  a 
one  as  that  which  watched  the  Christmas  dance  at 
Laguna.  Those  eight  hundred  men,  women,  and 
children  all  stood  looking  on  in  decorous  silence, 
never  moving  a  muscle  nor  uttering  a  sound.  Only 
once  did  they  relax  their  gravity  and  that  was  at 
our  coming.  My  nondescript  appearance,  as  I 
climbed  up  a  house  and  sat  down  on  the  roof,  was 
too  much  for  them,  as  well  it  might  be.     The 


ACROSS  THE  RIO   GRANDE  166 

sombrero,  with  its  snake-skin  band;  the  knife  and 
two  six-shooters  in  my  belt;  the  bulging  duck  coat 
and  long-fringed  snowy  leggins;  the  skunk-skin 
dangling  from  my  blanket  roll;  and  last,  but  not 
least,  the  stuffed  coyote  over  my  shoulders,  looking 
natural  as  life,  made  up  a  picture  I  feel  sure  they 
never  saw  before  and  probably  never  will  see  again. 
They  must  have  though  me  Pa-puk-ke-wis,  the  wild 
man  of  the  plains.  A  lot  of  the  children  crowded 
around  me,  and  when  I  caught  the  coyote  by  the 
neck  and  shook  it,  at  the  same  time  growling  at 
them  savagely,  they  jumped  away  and  the  whole 
assembly  was  convulsed  with  laughter. 

Por  hours  we  watched  the  strange,  wild  spectacle, 
until  the  sinking  sun  warned  us  to  be  moving,  and 
we  reluctantly  turned  our  faces  westward.  It  was 
after  dark  when  we  reached  the  nasty  little  section- 
house  which  comprised  Cubero,  and  we  found  no 
supper  and  no  better  bed  than  the  greasy  floor. 
Phillips  had  been  in  high  spirits  all  day,  and  was 
constantly  exclaiming  about  the  surprise  of  the 
natives  when  we  should  have  walked  to  California. 
"I'll  show  you  how  to  do  it!'*  he  cried,  over  and 
over.  "I  used  to  walk  forty  miles  a  day  on  an 
average  and  carry  a  surveyor's  chain."  But  at  the 
Cubero  accommodations  he  began  to  grumble. 

Cubero  is  the  nearest  station  to  the  most  wonder- 
ful aboriginal  city  on  earth  —  cliff -built,    cloud- 


166       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

swept,  matchless  Acoma.  Thirteen  miles  south,  up 
a  valley  of  growing  beauty,  we  came  to  the  home 
of  these  strange  sky-dwellers,  a  butte  of  rock  nearly 
four  hundred  feet  tall  and  seventy  acres  in  area. 

We  were  handsomely  entertained  in  the  comfort- 
able and  roomy  house  of  Martin  Valle,  the  seven- 
times  governor  of  the  pueblo  —  a  fine-faced,  kindly, 
still  active  man  of  ninety,  who  rides  his  plunging 
bronco  to-day  as  firmly  as  the  best  of  them ;  and 
who  in  the  years  since  our  first  meeting  has  become 
a  valued  friend.  With  him  that  day  was  his  her- 
culean war-captain,  Faustino.  I  doubt  if  there  was 
ever  carved  a  manlier  frame  than  Faustino's ;  and 
certain  it  is  that  there  never  was  a  face  nearer  the 
ideal  Mars.  A  grand,  massive  head,  outlined  in 
strength  rather  than  delicacy;  great,  rugged  feat- 
ures, yet  superbly  moulded  withal  —  an  eye  like 
a  lion's,  nose  and  forehead  full  of  character,  and  a 
jaw  which  was  massive  but  not  brutal,  calm  but 
inexorable  as  fate.  I  have  never  seen  a  finer  face 
—  for  a  man  whose  trade  is  war,  that  is.  Of  course 
it  would  hardly  fit  a  professor's  shoulders.  But  it 
will  always  stand  out  in  my  memory  with  but  two 
or  three  others  —  the  most  remarkable  types  I  have 
ever  encountered.  One  of  the  Council  accom- 
panied us,  too,  a  kindly,  intelligent  old  man  named 
Jos^  Miguel  Chino  —  since  gone  to  sleep  in  the 
indeterminate  jumble  of  the  gray  graveyard. 


ACROSS  THE  RIO  GRANDE  167 

In  a  "  street "  paved  with  the  eternal  rock  of  the 
mesa  were  a  hundred  children  playing  jubilantly. 
It  was  a  pleasant  sight,  and  they  were  pleasant 
children.  I  have  never  seen  any  of  them  fighting, 
and  they  are  as  bright,  clean-faced,  sharp-eyed,  and 
active  as  you  find  in  an  American  schoolyard  at 
recess.  The  boys  were  playing  some  sort  of  Acoma 
tag,  and  the  girls  mostly  looked  on.  I  don't  know 
that  they  had  the  scruples  of  the  sex  about  boister- 
ous play.  But  nearly  every  one  of  them  carried  a 
fat  baby  brother  or  sister  on  her  back,  in  the  bight 
of  her  shawl.  These  uncomplaining  little  nurses 
were  from  twelve  years  old  down  to  five.  Truly, 
the  Acoma  maiden  begins  to  be  a  useful  member  of 
the  household  at  an  early  age ! 

Coming  back  from  an  exploration  of  the  great 
church  with  its  historic  paintings,  and  the  dizzy 
"stone  ladder"  where  the  patient  moccasins  of 
untold  generations  have  worn  their  imprint  six 
inches  deep  in  the  rock,  I  found  the  old  governor 
sitting  at  his  door,  indulging  in  the  characteristic 
"  shave  "  of  his  people.  He  was  impassively  peck- 
ing away  at  his  bronze  cheeks  and  thinking  about 
some  matter  of  state.  The  aborigine  does  not  put 
a  razor  to  his  face,  but  goes  to  the  root  of  the  mat- 
ter—  plucking  out  each  hirsute  newcomer  bodily 
by  pinch  of  fingernails,  or  with  knife-blade  against 
his  thumb,    or  with   tweezers.      The    governor's 


188   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

"razor"  was  a  unique  and  ingenious  affair.  He 
had  taken  the  brass  shell  of  a  45-60  rifle  cartridge, 
split  it  nearly  to  the  base,  flattened  the  two  sides, 
filed  their  edges  true,  and  given  them  a  slight 
spread  at  the  fork.  Thus  he  got  a  pair  of  tweezers 
better  adapted  to  his  work  than  the  American  style. 
With  this  he  was  coolly  assaulting  his  kindly  old 
face,  mechanically  and  methodically,  never  wincing 
at  the  operation. 

As  we  talked  in  disjointed  Spanish,  I  saw  a  very 
wonderful  thing  —  such  a  thing  as  is  probably  not 
to  be  seen  again  in  a  lifetime.  An  old  crone  came 
in,  carrying  a  six-months'  babe.  She  was  a  hundred 
years  old, '  toothless,  —  for  a  wonder,  for  Acoma 
teeth  are  long-lived,  —  snowy -haired,  and  bony,  but 
not  bent.  She  and  the  infant  were  the  extremes  of 
six  generations,  for  it  was  her  great-great-great- 
great-grandchild  that  dangled  in  her  shawl.  I  saw 
the  grandmother,  great-grandmother,  and  great- 
great-grandmother  of  the  child  afterwards,  the 
mother  being  absent  at  Acomita.  Poor  old  woman ! 
Think  of  her  having  cared  for  five  generations  of 
measles,  croup,  colic,  and  cholera  infantum ! 

There  was  a  wonderful  foot-race  that  day,  too, 
between  half  a  dozen  young  men  of  Acoma  and  an 
equal  number  from  Laguna.  There  were  several 
hundred  dollars'  worth  of  ponies  and  blankets  upon 
the  race,  and  much  loud  talking  accompanied  the 


ACROSS  THE  RIO  GRANDE       169 

preliminaries.  Then  the  runners  and  the  judges 
went  down  to  the  plain,  while  every  one  else  gath- 
ered on  the  edge  of  the  cliff.  At  the  signal,  the 
twelve  lithe,  clean-faced  athletes  started  off  like 
deer.  Their  running  costume  consisted  of  the 
dark-blue  pataraho,  or  breech-clout,  and  their  sin- 
ewy trunks  and  limbs  were  bare.  Each  side  had  a 
stick  about  the  size  of  a  lead  pencil ;  and  as  they 
ran,  they  had  to  kick  this  along  in  front  of  them, 
never  touching  it  with  the  fingers.  The  course  was 
around  a  wide  circuit  which  included  the  mesa  of 
Acoma  and  several  other  big  hills.  I  was  told 
afterward  that  the  distance  was  a  good  twenty-five 
miles.  The  Acoma  boys,  who  won  the  race,  did 
it  in  two  hours  and  thirty-one  minutes  —  which 
would  be  good  running,  even  without  the  stick- 
kicking  arrangement. 

I  gathered  many  interesting  trophies  at  Acoma 
—  moccasins,  necklace  ornaments  of  native  jet 
(which  is  found  rather  abundantly  in  that  region), 
and  some  superb  arrow-heads  of  red  moss  agate, 
opaline,  and  smoky  topaz,  and  many  other  curios. 

Near  Cubero,  by  the  way,  is  a  startling  "  buried 
treasure,"  if  popular  tradition  is  to  be  believed. 
A  hill  not  far  from  the  railroad  is  its  alleged  hid- 
ing-place. 

According  to  the  accepted  story,  an  expedition 
from  Old  Mexico  was  returning  from  California 


170   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

long  ago,  with  an  incredible  treasure  —  so  much 
gold  that  it  loaded  down  some  hundreds  of  burros. 
They  had  come  safely  across  the  desert,  and  thus 
far  into  New  Mexico,  when  they  were  set  upon  by 
the  Apaches  in  such  numbers  as  to  make  matters 
extremely  ticklish  even  for  so  strong  a  party.  As 
their  only  way  of  escape  they  dug  and  timbered  a 
big  tunnel,  buried  their  seven  million  dollars' 
worth  of  gold  dust  and  nuggets  therein  securely, 
and  thus  lightened,  made  a  rapid  push  for  home. 
The  Apaches  were  too  many  for  them,  however, 
and  killed  off  nearly  all  before  they  reached  Chi- 
huahua. The  few  survivors  made  several  desperate 
efforts  to  get  back  and  remove  their  treasure,  but 
instead  left  their  scattered  bones  to  bleach  on  the 
arid  plains,  till  at  last  only  one  man  of  all  the 
party  was  left.  He  died  some  years  later  in 
Europe,  whither  he  had  gone  to  enlist  capital  for 
an  expedition  strong  enough  to  stand  off  the 
Indians,  who  were  then  making  it  sultry  for 
New  Mexico.  After  his  death  the  story  of  the 
seven  millions  slumbered  for  a  term  of  years. 
Few,  if  any,  in  New  Mexico  had  ever  heard  of  it, 
and  the  hill  rested  undisturbed.  At  last  a  quiet, 
mysterious  German  appeared  one  day  in  the  Mexi- 
can hamlet  of  Cubero.  He  was  on  some  moment- 
ous mission,  but  no  one  could  learn  what  it  was 
until  he  had  carefully  picked  out  a  few  men  whom 


ACROSS  THE  RIO  GRANDE  171 

he  deemed  trustworthy,  and  to  them  confided  his 
secret.  A  couple  of  years  before  he  had  cared  for 
a  destitute  and  dying  Mexican,  who  had  rewarded 
his  kindness  by  leaving  him  the  story  of  the  seven 
million  and  a  map  of  the  spot  where  it  was  buried. 
He  had  this  map  and  a  written  guide  with  him. 
The  map  showed  Mount  San  Mateo,  the  adjacent 
mesas,  the  lava  flow,  "a  creek  full  of  sardines" 
(the  Agua  Azul),  and  the  hill  of  gold.  In  a  very 
short  time  the  German  mysteriously  disappeared 
from  the  village,  and  so  did  several  well-known 
citizens.  No  one  knew  what  had  become  of  them, 
till  a  sheep-herder  found  them  digging  away  at  a 
hill  beyond  McCarty's.  They  labored  there  some 
weeks,  and  then  the  German  fell  sick  and  had  to 
be  removed  to  Cubero.  He  died  soon  after,  and  as 
their  work  had  disclosed  nothing  tempting,  his 
Mexican  partners  soon  wearied  of  the  job.  The 
story  had  leaked  out,  however,  and  ever  since  then 
there  have  been  intermittent  but  in  the  aggregate 
very  extensive  attempts  to  unearth  the  alleged 
treasure.  Mexicans  have  pottered  away  there 
some  of  their  abundant  leisure ;  American  ranchers 
have  excavated  a  good  deal,  and  railroad  men  have 
thrown  up  their  jobs  to  take  a  spell  with  pick  and 
spade.  One  party  of  Mexicans  from  Cubero  worked 
there  a  long  time.  They  were  finally  rewarded  by 
coming  to  loose  earth  and  then  a  timbered  tunnel. 


172   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

But  no  sooner  did  they  strike  the  cavity  than 
appalling  noises  rushed  forth,  and  believing  the 
place  haunted,  they  ran  away  never  to  return. 

But  that  golden  myth  was  less  interesting  to  me 
than  a  strange  bonanza  which  I  personally  know  to 
be  authentic.  It  is  located  in  the  old  town  of 
Cubero,  three  miles  from  the  station.  One  of  the 
first  houses  in  the  hamlet  is  that  of  Don  Pablo 
Pino,  the  leading  merchant  of  western  New  Mexico 
a  generation  ago.  It  is  a  big,  square  adobe,  with 
the  customary  placita  or  court  in  the  centre.  The 
front  door,  which  few  Americans  are  allowed  to 
enter,  is  an  invention  of  Don  Pablo's.  It  is  about 
six  feet  wide  and  five  feet  high.  Now  Don  Pablo 
is  a  tall  man,  as  well  as  a  very  heavy  and  aged 
one;  and  to  bend  his  rheumatic  joints  every  time 
he  went  in  or  out  would  be  intolerable.  So  above 
the  centre  of  the  door  a  dome  a  foot  higher  has  been 
sawed  out,  wide  enough  for  the  passage  of  his  head. 
On  any  bright  day  the  old  man  may  be  seen ;  but 
his  wife,  an  aged  sylph  of  three  hundred  pounds, 
is  never  visible.  She  has  more  important  cares 
within.  Don  Pablo  has  always  distrusted  the 
"  gringo  "  banks,  —  since  there  have  been  any  in  the 
Territory,  —  and  has  for  years  kept  his  hard  cash  in 
a  safe  guarded  by  the  most  unique  time-lock  on 
record.  In  a  strong  inner  room,  which  no  stranger 
ever  sees,  a  narrow  hole  has  been  dug  down  through 


ACROSS  THE  RIO  GRANDE  173 

the  adobe  floor.  In  it  lie  something  like  $70,000 
in  coin ;  and  in  a  chair  upon  its  trap-door  sits  the 
ponderous  senora!  Truly,  it  would  be  an  unman- 
nerly cracksman  who  should  tamper  with  that  lock ! 
There  are  men  and  guns  in  plenty  about.  A  strong 
armed  force  could  hardly  capture  the  strangely 
guarded  treasure,  and  there  have  never  been,  I 
believe,  any  attempts.  And  to  this  day,  the  old 
man,  bent  over  his  stout  stick,  suns  himself  before 
his  quaint  doorway;  while  his  better  and  heavier 
half  still  dozes  day  and  night  in  her  unshifted  arm- 
chair above  the  treasure. 


XII 

FROM  CUBERO  TO  SAN  MATEO 

Phillips  gives  up.  —  Southwestern  Eloquence.  —  The  Buried 
City  of  San  Mateo.  —  Home-life  on  a  Hacienda.  —  A 
Mexican  "April  Fool."  —  American  Citizens  who  Tor- 
ture Themselves  and  Crucify  Each  Other.  —  A  New 
Mexico  Milking. 

The  morning  when  we  resumed  our  westward 
way  from  Cubero,  the  ground  was  six  inches  deep 
with  snow,  and  the  storm  increasing.  The  break- 
fast was  simply  uneatable,  and  we  started  off 
poorly  prepared  for  so  hard  a  day's  work.  The 
slush  and  mud  made  walking  very  difficult;  and  as 
we  were  going  steadily  up  grade  the  road  grew 
worse  with  every  mile.  A  hearty  dinner  at 
McCarty's  cheered  us;  but  as  the  afternoon  wore 
on  Phillips  began  to  be  a  kill-joy.  He  was  not  a 
profane  man,  but  his  groans,  sighs,  objurgations  of 
the  weather,  and  growing  pessimism  about  life  in 
general  made  the  way  almost  as  cheerful  as  a 
funeral  procession.  "  Say,  don't  you  know  this  is 
174 


FKOM  CUBERO  TO  SAN   MATEO  175 

an  awful  big  undertaking  to  walk  to  Los  Angeles," 
he  broke  out  every  now  and  then;  and  it  was  plain 
what  shape  his  thoughts  were  taking.  He  kept 
falling  behind  and  then  running  to  catch  up,  while 
I  ploughed  ahead  as  fast  as  ever  I  could.  My  heart 
rather  smote  me,  but  it  was  a  mercy  to  both  of  us 
to  try  his  metal  at  the  outset;  if  he  was  "infirm 
of  purpose,"  the  sooner  we  parted  company  the 
better  for  both ;  and  if  he  was  of  the  real  stuff  this 
would  bring  it  out. 

For  only  twenty-five  miles,  that  was  a  very  hard 
day's  work,  and  when  we  reached  Grant's  in  the 
evening  Phillips'  walking  days  were  done.  He 
left  me  there  and  took  the  train  for  California,  and 
I  never  saw  him  but  once  again. 

From  Grant's  I  was  to  make  a  side-trip  of 
twenty-five  miles  up  to  the  quaint  Mexican  hamlet 
of  San  Mateo  to  visit  Colonel  Manuel  Chaves,  the 
finest  rifle  shot  and  greatest  Indian  fighter  in  the 
Southwest  in  his  day.  Our  five  days'  acquaint- 
ance then  ripened  into  one  of  the  dearest  of 
friendships,  and  since  the  old  hero's  death  his 
gallant  sons  have  grown  near  to  me  in  com- 
panionship through  such  dangers  as  draw  men 
together. 

But  the  getting  to  San  Mateo  must  not  be  over- 
looked. The  snows  were  deep  and  it  was  late  at 
night;  but  a  servant  of  the  Chaves  house  was  at 


176       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

Grants  with  a  "bull- team."  If  I  walked,  the 
hospitable  Spanish  hearts  would  be  outraged.  No, 
I  must  get  into  the  big  freight-wagon  and  go  to 
sleep  —  Tircio  had  strict  orders  not  to  let  me 
walk.  So  L  obediently  crawled  under  the  wagon- 
sheet  and  snuggled  down  in  my  sleeping-bag,  while 
Tircio  sat  forward  and  promulgated  his  blacksnake 
and  exhorted  the  oxen.  Once  in  awhile  he  said 
something  personal  to  them,  but  no  more  than 
any  one  would  say  who  had  to  drive  such  stupids. 
There  was  no  hint  of  the  rare  pyrotechnics  to 
follow. 

New  Mexico  is  the  native  heath  of  profanity. 
I  have  heard  with  interest  the  oratory  of  those 
who  elsewhere  enjoy  an  undeserved  repute  for 
their  ability  to  swing  the  dictionary  around  by 
the  tail  and  shake  all  the  swear-words  loose.  But 
bless  you,  they  don't  know  their  "a,  b,  abs." 
The  most  unambitious  paisano  can  swear  around 
them  and  past  them  and  over  them  with  the  easy 
grace  of  a  greyhound  circumnavigating  a  tortoise. 
It  was  a  New  Mexican  who  was  the  only  man  I 
ever  heard  divorce  a  polysyllable  with  an  oath.  I 
brought  him  word  that  a  certain  desperado  was 
"hunting"  him. 

"Wal?"  he  growled. 

"Wal!"  I  retorted,  "IVe  ridden  twenty  miles 
to  tell  you,  so  he  shouldn't  catch  you  short.*' 


FROM  CUBERO  TO  SAN  MATEO  177 

"Wal,  I'm  under  no  obli-byGod-gation  to  you, 
sir,  if  you  did,  blankety  blank !  " 

But  he  was  only  an  Eastern  man  Kew  Mexi- 
canized.  The  natives  are  not  guilty  of  such 
vague  and  meaningless  blasphemy.  They  swear 
methodically,  gracefully,  fluently,  comprehen- 
sively, homogeneously,  eloquently,  thoughtfully  — 
I  had  almost  said,  prayerfully.  They  curse  every- 
thing an  inch  high;  they  ransack  the  archives  of 
history,  and  send  forward  a  search-warrant  into 
the  dim  halls  of  futurity,  to  make  sure  that 
nothing  curseworthy  escapes.  But  there  is  noth- 
ing brutal  about  it.  It  is  courteous,  tactful, 
musical,  rapt  —  at  times  majestic.  It  carries  a 
sense  of  artistic  satisfaction. 

It  was  providential  that  I  had  by  now  scraped 
some  approximate  acquaintance  with  that  melodi- 
ous tongue,  for  my  Jehu  knew  not  a  word  of 
English.  All  went  well  until  we  came  to  cross 
the  tiny  arroyo  in  the  Portecito.  Here  we  slumped 
suddenly  in  a  quicksand.  The  hind  wheels  went 
down  almost  from  sight,  the  front  wheels  and  the 
oxen  hung  on  the  bluff  farther  bank  —  and  then 
Tircio  let  go.  A  perfect  gentleman,  Tircio.  A 
quiet,  hard-working,  honest  boy  whose  dimpled 
babes  at  home  tweak  his  thin  beard  by  hours 
unchidden,  and  whose  heart  and  home  are  open  as 
the  soul  of  New  Mexican  hospitality.    But  as  an 


178       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

exhorter  of  cattle  —  well,  I  believe  the  Eecording 
Angel  must  have  just  given  it  up,  after  a  bit,  and 
dropped  the  ledger  and  gone  away  to  rest.  And 
the  substance  of  his  oration  was  in  words  and 
figures  as  follows,  to  wit :  — 

"  Malditos  bueyes !  Of  ill-said  sires  and  dams ! 
[Nothing  intentional  here.]  Malaia  your  faces! 
Also  your  souls,  bodies,  and  tails !  [Crack !]  That 
your  fathers  be  accursed,  and  your  mothers  three 
times!  [Crack!]  Jump,  then!  May  condemna- 
tion overtake  your  ears,  and  your  brand-marks 
tamhien  !  [Crack !]  The  Evil  One  take  away  your 
sisters  and  brothers,  and  the  cousin  of  your  grand- 
mother! [Crack!  Crack!]  That  the  coyotes  may 
eat  your  uncles  and  aunts!  DiaUosl  [Crack!] 
Get  out  of  this !  Go,  sons  of  sleeping  mothers  that 
were  too  tired  to  eat!  Como?  [Crack!  Crack!] 
The  fool  that  broke  you,  would  that  he  had  to 
drive  you  in  injierno,  with  all  your  cousins  and 
relations  by  marriage !  [Crack!]  Ill-said  family, 
that  wear  out  the  yoke  with  nodding  in  it!  Curse 
your  tallow  and  hoofs !  Would  that  I  had  a  chicote 
of  all  your  hides  at  once,  to  give  you  blows! 
[Crack!]  Malaia  your  ribs  and  your  knee-joints, 
and  any  other  bones  I  may  forget!  Anathema 
upon  your  great-great-grandfathers,  and  every- 
thing else  that  ever  wore  horns !     Mai  —  " 

Here  I  interposed,  for  I  was  slowly  freezing, 


FROM  CUBERO  TO  SAN  MATEO     179 

and  Tircio  was  just  beginning  to  get  interested. 
Business  before  pleasure,  always;  and  the  lirst 
business  was  to  send  him  for  assistance.  The  last 
words  I  caught,  as  he  trudged  off  to  San  Mateo 
through  the  storm,  were :  — 

"  — and  your  dewlaps  and  livers!  And  curse 
everything  from  here  to  Albuquerque  and  back 
four  times !     And  —  " 

Then  he  faded  into  the  night,  while  I  tried 
to  remember  his  adjectives  to  keep  warm  —  for 
there  was  nothing  wherewith  to  build  a  fire. 

It  was  a  bitter  night  there,  too  cold  for  sleeping, 
too  stormy  for  anything  else.  I  took  Shadow  into 
the  sleeping-bag,  and  we  kept  each  other  from 
freezing  —  but  only  that.  At  last  came  the  muffled 
beat  of  horse-hoofs  J  and  in  a  moment  more  Tircio 
drew  up  beside  the  wagon  with  two  stout  allies. 
The  freight  was  soon  unloaded,  the  fresh  horses 
soon  helped  the  wagon  out,  and  with  my  head  on 
a  soap-box  I  slept  sweetly  while  we  bumped  over 
the  roads  and  gullies  to  San  Mateo. 

There  was  the  true  Spanish  hospitality  —  a  uni- 
versal welcome  which  the  very  name  of  the  home 
betokens,  for  it  is  Sucasa,  "Your  Own  House." 
The  time  passed  very  quickly  with  hunting  and 
exploring  by  day,  and  filling  the  long  winter 
evenings  with  song  and  quaint  Spanish  games  with 
the  cordial  household.     Three  wintry  days  I  spent 


180       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

digging  in  a  wonderful  American  Pompeii.  Three- 
quarters  of  a  mile  from  the  Chaves  homestead  is  a 
low,  irregular  mound,  within  a  few  rods  of  which 
one  might  pass  without  a  suspicion  of  its  interest. 
For  the  hundred  years  that  mound  has  been  known 
to  civilized  people,  it  kept  its  secret  well  hidden 
until  1884.  But  one  day  a  savage  windstorm 
gouged  out  a  lot  of  sand  from  its  flanks,  and  a 
passer  noticed  the  top  of  a  remarkable  wall  peep- 
ing out.  Don  Amado  Chaves,  eldest  son  of  the 
brave  old  Colonel,  and  now  Territorial  Superin- 
tendent of  Public  Instruction,  had  excavations  made 
which  showed  that  the  mound  was  the  grave  of  an 
entire  prehistoric  pueblo  —  buried  by  the  drifting 
sands  of  countless  ages.  The  whole  of  the  first 
story  is  still  standing,  though  all  the  rooms  were 
choked  with  debris  from  the  walls  of  the  second 
and  third  stories.  The  masonry  is  of  stone,  and 
wonderfully  good.  Down  one  of  those  time-tried 
walls  the  point  of  a  spade  slides  as  down  a  planed 
board.  This  was  the  first  of  the  countless  won- 
derful ruins  in  New  Mexico  with  which  I  became 
familiar;  and  exploration  of  hundreds  of  others 
since  has  not  destroyed  my  interest  in  that 
strange,  buried,  prehistoric  city  of  the  aborigine 
at  San  Mateo.  The  pueblo  was  built  in  one  enor- 
mous fort-house  in  the  shape  of  a  rectangle  inclos- 
ing a  courtyard.     The  outer  walls  were  nearly 


FROM  CUBERO  TO  SAN  MATEO      181 

two  hundred  feet  long  on  a  side,  and  about  thirty 
to  forty  feet  high.  Not  a  door  or  loophole  of  any 
sort  broke  that  wall,  and  the  only  access  to  the 
courtyard,  upon  which  all  the  doors  and  "win- 
dows" opened,  was  by  ladders  which  could  be 
pulled  up  over  the  wall,  thus  leaving  the  inhabi- 
tants inside  their  strange  stone  box,  very  safe  from 
any  foes  of  their  day.  Even  the  doorways  upon 
the  little  inner  square,  and  those  from  room  to 
room  within,  were  so  tiny  that  a  foe  already  in 
the  house  could  easily  be  overcome  as  he  squeezed 
through — wee  openings  only  about  sixteen  inches 
wide  and  three  feet  or  less  in  height.  In  my 
excavations — ^^for  I  shouldered  a  spade  and  dug 
there  enthusiastically,  as  would  any  young  Ameri- 
can who  had  a  chance  —  I  uncovered  several  of 
these  "toy"  doors,  which  interested  me  greatly. 
I  did  not  then  know  that  these  were  the  character- 
istic doorways  of  all  ancient  pueblo  architecture, 
these  harassed  people  preferring  domestic  incon- 
veniences for  the  sake  of  greater  safety  against 
their  innumerable  foes ;  and  I  was  quite  ready  to 
accept  the  theories  of  equally  green  folk  (who, 
however,  are  not  too  modest  to  write  "  scientific " 
books)  that  such  ruins  were  peopled  by  a  race  of 
dwarfs. 

But  despite  the  strength  of  its  solid  stone  walls, 
this  house-town  of  perhaps  two  hundred  people 


182       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

had  met  the  fate  of  so  many  of  the  pueblos  of  the 
old  days,  and  tragedy  is  written  all  across  its 
mysterious  ruins.  The  lower  rooms  (which  are 
all  perfect  except  as  to  roof)  are  choked  with 
the  debris  of  the  upper  ones  —  full  of  charred 
remnants  of  roof  and  rafter.  The  pueblo  was 
taken  in  war,  —  doubtless  by  surprise,  for  it  should 
easily  have  withstood  any  assault  with  the  weapons 
of  those  days,  and  doubtless  by  the  Navajos,  vrlo 
roamed  thickest  there, — many  of  its  people  wcro 
slain,  and  then  the  firebrand  of  the  savage  victors 
did  its  work  and  tumbled  the  ruined  home  upon 
the  careless  grave  of  the  dead  owners.  There  are 
many,  many  human  bones  under  that  ancient 
wreck,  and  Don  Amado  once  dug  up,  in  the 
largest  room  of  all,  the  perfect  skeleton  of  a 
woman,  her  long,  silken,  black  hair  still  beautiful 
as  in  the  forgotten  days  when  she  washed  it  at  the 
little  acequia  (irrigating  ditch)  whose  course  can 
still  be  dimly  traced  along  the  valley.  I  found 
many  arrowheads  and  implements  of  petrified  wood 
and  volcanic  glass,  a  few  finely  made  bone  beads, 
and  bushels  of  fragments  of  pottery,  still  beauti- 
fully bright  of  hue  after  all  these  centuries,  and 
many  other  interesting  relics. 

The  home-life  of  the  lovable  Mexican  family 
with  whom  I  spent  those  stormy  but  happy  four 
days   interested  me  greatly.     The  large,  roomy, 


FROM  CUBBRO  TO  SAN  MATEO     183 

comfortably  appointed  adobe  house  was  as  unlike  a 
New  England  homestead  as  possible  in  all  but  the 
one  thing  —  that  it  was  home;  and  home  not  only 
for  its  people,  but  for  their  guests.  The  beds,  cov- 
ered with  priceless  Navajo  blankets,  were  scrupu- 
lously neat;  and  so  was  everything  else  in  the 
domestic  economy.  The  food,  though  still  new  to 
me,  was  abundant  and  very  good.  The  usual  bill 
of  fare  included  stews  of  mutton  with  rice,  beef 
roasted  in  delicious  cubes,  beef  shredded  and 
stewed  with  the  quenchless  but  delightful  chile, 
frijoles  (the  brown  beans  of  the  Southwest)  cooked 
as  only  a  Mexican  can  cook  them ;  white  and  gra- 
ham bread  of  home-made  flour  not  robbed  of  its 
nutrition  by  roller  processes,  and  baked  in  little 
"shortened"  cakes  called  galletitas;  wine,  perfect 
coffee,  and  canned  fruits.  All  the  baking  was 
done  in  the  big  adobe  beehives  of  ovens  in  the 
courtyard;  the  other  cooking  upon  the  kitchen 
stove.  A  dozen  ever-amiable  servants  kept  all  the 
affairs  of  the  extensive  household  in  excellent 
shape.  The  large  scale  of  housekeeping  at  such  a 
hacienda  may  be  inferred  from  the  one  item  of 
coffee,  of  which  2500  pounds  was  consumed  there 
yearly. 

In  the  evenings  we  gathered  in  one  of  the  big 
rooms,  by  the  rollicking  light  of  the  adobe  fire- 
place, and  sang  the  sweet  Spanish  folk-songs,  or 


184       A  TRAMlP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

played  happy,  simple  games.  The  old  hero  Don, 
wasted  with  disease  from  a  hundred  wounds  and  fifty 
years  of  incomparable  hardships;  his  Madonna- 
faced  wife,  his  very  beautiful  daughters  and  dash- 
ing sons,  and  cousins  and  friends,  old  and  young 
—  how  the  faces  all  come  back  to  me  now,  though 
so  many  of  the  dearest  sleep  under  the  long  shadow 
of  the  noble  peak  of  San  Mateo. 

Among  the  quaint  social  games  we  played  were 
many  closely  similar  to  the  old-fashioned  ones  of 
New  England.  The  play  ^^Floron"  (the  ring)  is 
very  much  the  same  as  "  Button,  button,  who's  got 
the  button?"  except  that  a  ring  is  the  article 
hidden  from  hand  to  hand,  and  that  a  pretty 
Spanish  couplet  is  sung  throughout  the  game. 
"  El  molino  "  (the  mill)  is  a  version  of  the  familiar 
game  wherein  the  players  are  named  after  the 
various  accessories  of  a  mill.  The  leader  tells  a 
story  and  at  the  mention  therein  of  any  article  the 
player  meant  thereby  must  rise  and  change  his  or 
her  chair,  and  when  "  the  mill  is  broken  "  all  jump 
up  and  scramble  for  new  seats.  The  "bullet"  is 
something  like  "fishing  for  apples."  A  conical 
peak  of  flour  is  built  upon  a  plate,  and  a  leaden 
bullet  balanced  upon  its  apex.  The  players  in 
turn  take  a  table  knife  and  cut  away  as  much  of 
the  flour  hill  as  possible  without  disturbing  the 
bullet.     The  one  who  causes  it  to  fall  has  to  do 


FROM  CUBERO  TO  SAN  MATEO  185 

penance.  The  bullet  is  again  placed  on  top  of  the 
cut  pile  and  the  loser  has  to  pick  it  up  with  his 
teeth,  an  operation  during  which  some  one  is  sure 
to  give  the  bent  head  a  shove  which  thrusts  his 
face  deep  into  the  flour.  Forfeits  figure  largely 
in  the  games  and  are  often  comical,  but  never 
really  unkind.  A  favorite  is  to  order  the  penitent 
to  make  a  speech  wherein  another  player  supplies 
the  gestures.  The  second  player  stands  behind  the 
first  with  his  arms  under  those  of  the  victim,  and 
carries  on  a  most  impressive  gesticulation  while 
the  victim  speaks.  The  end  of  the  oration  is  gen- 
erally wild  laughter,  for  the  hands  take  occasion 
to  rub  imaginary  tears  from  the  orator's  face,  and 
to  leave  thereon  two  broad  smooches  of  lampblack. 
This  trick,  of  course,  is  never  played  on  ladies, 
whose  forfeits  are  generally  no  more  severe  than 
the  recitation  of  a  dicho  (a  Spanish  epigrammatic 
verse);  or  the  blowing  out  of  a  candle,  passed 
rapidly  before  their  faces ;  or  the  giving  of  "  three 
sighs  for  the  one  you  love  best.^'  There  is  nothing 
like  Copenhagen  or  any  of  the  similar  old-fashioned 
rural  games  of  the  East.  The  strict  Spanish  deco- 
rum would  never  tolerate  such  innovations.  But 
"the  mill"  and  "the  bullet"  and  "spinning  the 
plate  "  and  a  hundred  other  diversions  as  childlike 
and  as  childishly  enjoyed  fully  entertained  us. 
There  is  among  the  New  Mexicans  no  St.  Valen- 


186       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

tine  and  no  April  Fool.  Most  of  the  young  people 
of  the  Territory  never  even  heard  of  these  Saxon 
institutions.  They  have,  however,  a  custom  which 
seems  to  be  a  distant  cousin  to  both,  and  that  is 
the  dia  de  los  Santos  Inocentes,  the  day  of  the  Holy 
Innocents.  It  falls  on  January  28th,  and  is  an 
occasion  of  as  much  mirth  among  the  olive-skinned 
young  folk  of  New  Spain  as  February  14th  and 
April  1st  to  Yankee  boys  and  girls,  being  enjoyed 
by  much  older  jokers  than  would  nowadays  con- 
descend to  such  frivolities  in  the  East. 

On  that  day  it  is  the  ambition  of  every  wide- 
awake young  lady  of  the  lonely  little  Mexican  ham- 
lets to  hacer  d  uno  inocente  —  to  make  some  one  an 
innocent.  The  methods  employed  for  this  jovial 
"fooling"  are  generally  thus:  We  will  suppose 
that  Pedro  is  a  young  man  of  the  village  and  Maria 
a  mischievous  maiden.  On  the  morning  of  Janu- 
ary 28th  Pedro  is  busy  with  some  duty,  when  a 
very  small  and  very  tattered  messenger  arrives  at 
the  house  and  delivers  a  note  to  him.  Pedro  has 
perhaps  forgotten  the  day  altogether,  and,  entirely 
unsuspecting,  he  reads :  — 

"Appreciated  Friend:  Will  you  do  me  the 
favor  to  lend  me  your  horse  to-day  that  I  may  take 
a  paseo  f  Your  friend, 

"Maria  Baca." 


FROM  CUBERO  TO  SAN  MATEO     187 

" Por  supuestOf"  says  the  obliging  Pedro;  and 
going  out  into  the  fields  with  his  rope  he  lassos  a 
horse,  bridles  it,  and  sends  it  by  the  small  envoy 
to  Maria. 

In  a  little  time  the  boy  returns  with  his  hands 
full.  In  one  is  a  broom  —  a  tiny,  cunning  toy  of  a 
broom  tied  with  a  pretty  ribbon  —  and  a  very  wee 
cup  of  water  to  wet  it  in.  In  the  other  hand  is  a 
note,  always  in  these  words :  — 

"  My  Dear  Friend  :  May  God  repay  you  for 
[being  so]  innocent.  Here  I  send  you  a  little 
broom  and  a  little  cup,  that  you  may  sweep  off  the 
innocence  from  yourself. 

"  With  pleasant  remembrances,  your  friend, 

"Maria." 

The  cup  of  water  goes  with  the  miniature  broom, 
after  an  old  Spanish  custom.  The  natives  of  New 
Mexico  to  this  day  use  very  few  of  our  American 
brooms  with  handles.  Their  escoba  is  a  thick  wisp 
of  broom-corn  tied  in  a  round  sheaf,  and  sweeping 
with  it  requires  one  to  bend  half  double.  It  is 
never  used  dry;  the  housewife  always  dips  the 
end  in  a  dish  of  water  to  lay  the  dust. 

When  Pedro  has  read  this  note,  two  facts  dawn 
on  him  —  first,  that  he  has  been  made  an  inocente, 
and,  second,  that  his  horse  is  now  a  hostage  to  the 


188       A   TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

fair  joker,  and  that  he  cannot  recover  it  without  the 
proper  desempeflo  —  atonement.  He  always  takes 
the  trick  in  good  part  and  proceeds  to  redeem  his 
horse  by  making  some  pretty  present  to  Maria,  or 
by  promising  to  give  a  dance,  with  refreshments 
(chocolate,  cakes,  etc.),  in  her  honor.  This  prom- 
ise is  always  sacredly  kept,  and  the  ball  ends  in 
innocent  hilarity  the  good-natured  trick  of  the 
Santos  Inocentes.  The  word  santos  is  doubtless 
used  of  those  who  are  befooled  in  token  of  the 
ancient  feeling,  still  current  among  all  Spanish 
peoples,  that  those  of  little  wit  are  dear  to  and 
under  the  special  protection  of  God,  and  therefore 
holy. 

The  practice  of  desempeflo  is  a  very  ancient  one 
in  all  Spanish  countries,  and  figures  in  many  quaint 
customs.  Here,  for  instance,  there  is  always  the 
"  redeeming  "  of  a  little  girl  after  her  first  dance. 
Her  parents,  of  course,  accompany  her  to  the  ball 
—  there  is  no  escorting  by  beaux  to  such  affairs, 
nor  to  any  others,  for  Spanish  young  ladies.  When 
the  girl,  be  she  sixteen  or  six,  has  completed  her 
first  dance,  two  elderly  men,  friends  of  the  family, 
make  an  "arm-chair"  by  crossing  each  others' 
wrists,  after  a  fashion  familiar  to  our  boyhood, 
lift  the  debutante  thereon,  and  carry  her  in 
triumph  to  her  parents  to  demand  the  desempeflo. 
She  is  not  released  until  the  parents  promise  to 


FROM  CUBERO  TO  SAN  MATEO  189 

give  a  grand  ball  in  honor  of  the  friends  "who 
captured  the  child,"  and  when  that  festivity  comes 
off  she  is  belle  of  the  occasion.  In  the  remoter 
villages  the  "  grand  ball  "  is  but  a  little  dance  in  a 
clay-floored  room,  lit  by  flickering  candles,  and 
with  no  more  orchestra  than  a  blind  old  fiddler  and 
an  energetic  youth  with  an  accordeon.  But  simple 
and  plain  as  it  is,  there  is  a  thorough  spirit  of 
zest  which  is  not  always  found  in  more  brilliant 
gatherings. 

Here  at  San  Mateo,  too,  I  formed  my  first 
acquaintance  with  those  astounding  fanatics,  the 
Penitentes  —  an  acquaintance  which  afterward  came 
very  near  costing  my  life  on  several  occasions. 
These  ignorant  perverters  of  a  once  godly  brother- 
hood were  formerly  scattered  all  through  New 
Mexico;  but  of  late  years  have  died  out  save  in 
the  remoter  hamlets  like  San  Mateo.  Their  only 
appearance  as  a  religious  brotherhood  is  during  the 
forty  days  of  Lent;  but  then  they  do  penance  for 
the  sins  of  the  whole  year.  Kaked  to  the  waist, 
their  heads  covered  with  a  black  bag  like  a  hang- 
man's cap,  their  bleeding  bare  feet  guided  by  the 
"Brothers  of  Light,"  they  make  their  awful  pro- 
cessions, flaying  their  own  bare  backs  with  cruel 
scourges  till  the  blood  runs  to  their  heels,  bearing 
crosses  of  crushing  weight  or  burdens  of  cactus 
lashed  tight  to  the  quivering  flesh.     And  on  Good 


190   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

Friday  they  culminate  with  the  actual  crucifixion 
of  one  of  their  number,  chosen  by  lot !  Afterward 
I  not  only  witnessed  these  ghastly  scenes,  but 
photographed  them  all,  including  the  crucifixion. 
We  read  with  a  shiver  of  the  self-tortures  of  East 
Indian  fakeers,  most  of  us  ignorant  that  in  the 
oldest  corner  of  our  own  enlightened  nation  as 
astounding  barbarities  are  still  practised  by  citi- 
zens and  voters  of  the  United  States. 

My  eyes  were  beginning  to  open  now  to  real 
insight  of  the  things  about  me;  and  everything 
suddenly  became  invested  with  a  wondrous  inter- 
est. It  is  not  an  inevitable  thing.  Thousands 
live  for  years  beside  these  strange  facts,  too  care- 
less ever  to  see  them ;  but  the  attention  once  secured 
never  goes  hungry  for  new  interest.  Years  of  study 
since  have  not  worn  out  for  me  the  fascination  of 
the  real  inner  meaning  of  this  unguessed  land  — 
its  history,  its  habits,  and  its  mental  processes.  It 
is  a  world  by  itself — a  land  as  much  outside  the 
United  States  ethnologically  as  within  it  geograph- 
ically. Every  pettiest  act  of  life  is  new  and 
strange  to  the  intelligent  man  from  the  East  — 
tinged  sometimes  with  humor,  sometimes  with 
pathos,  always  with  interest. 

A  trivial  matter  which  is  one  of  the  first  to 
strike  the  newcomer  was  more  seriously  impressed 
upon  me  here  —  and  in  later  days  has  been  so  oft 


FROM  CUBERO  TO   SAN  MATEO  191 

reiterated  as  fairly  to  leave  a  scar  on  memory. 
That  is,  the  liberty  allowed  stock  in  the  South- 
west. I  do  not  refer  to  mining  stock,  —  which  is 
always  too  depressed  to  take  advantage  of  any 
liberty,  —  but  quadrupeds.  The  fence  is  a  refine- 
ment of  scepticism  which  has  no  place  in  the  New 
Mexican  economy;  and  stables  are  almost  unheard- 
of.  The  faith  of  the  country  is  sublime.  The 
traveller  camps  indefinitely  in  a  field  four  hundred 
miles  square,  and  turns  his  horse  loose  on  Space. 
The  ranchero,  just  in  from  an  eighty  mile  ride,  and 
under  bonds  to  make  a  similar  paseo  to-morrow, 
does  likewise.  For  three  hundred  years  the  paisano 
has  been  nightly  dismissing  his  stock  with  firm 
faith  that  in  the  opalescent  dawn  the  animals  will 
come  knocking  at  the  door  to  be  saddled.  Eor 
three  hundred  years  he  has  been  daily  rising  to 
look  out  upon  a  landscape  bereft  of  quadrupedality ; 
and  to  sally  forth  with  a  rope  and  provisions  for 
a  fortnight.  As  a  rule,  the  horse  is  found  before 
the  provisions  run  out;  and  the  few  searchers  who 
have  starved  had  little  pity.  More  than  two 
weeks'  rations  of  flour  and  bacon  is  too  much  to 
pay  for  a  New  Mexican  horse,  anyhow.  Occasion- 
ally some  sceptic  thinks  to  supplement  Providence 
by  rawhide  handcuffs  on  the  forefeet  of  his  Rosin- 
ante;  but  the  impertinence  is  properly  rebuked. 
The  distance  between  here  and  Halifax  that  a  hob- 


192   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

bled  horse  cannot  travel  in  a  night  would  scarce 
make  a  promenade  for  a  weary  tumble-bug.  Hob- 
bles seem  to  add  just  the  incentive  the  jaded  bronco 
was  looking  for.  Like  all  great  souls,  he  loves  to 
triumph  over  obstacles ;  and  his  triumph  is  apt  to 
lap  over  into  Utah.  Nor  have  you  got  him  when 
you  find  him.  He  knows  that  sudden  joy  is  apt 
to  be  fatal  —  and  he  is  no  wilful  homicide.  It  is 
his  disposition  to  break  it  to  you  gently.  Indeed, 
by  the  time  you  get  him,  your  joy  is  so  tempered 
that  it  would  not  be  dangerous  to  a  man  with  both 
feet  in  the  grave. 

The  best  way  to  catch  a  horse,  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, is  with  a  six-shooter.  Of  course  you 
then  have  to  walk  home,  a  few  hundred  miles; 
and  you  get  no  further  good  of  the  horse  —  but  the 
satisfaction  is  cheap  at  double  the  money. 

A  like  originality  of  method  obtains  in  other 
processes  of  farm  and  fireside.  As  to  milking, 
I  shall  never  forget  my  first  experience.  Juan  Rey 
had  lassoed  a  yearling,  with  the  other  end  of  the 
rope  tied  to  his  waist;  and  had  last  been  heard 
from  down  in  Sierra  County,  still  pleading  with 
the  steer  to  pause  and  consider.  The  place  was 
therefore  short  by  two  maul-like  but  useful  fists; 
and  Don  Amado  came  to  me  and  said :  — 

"Can  you  milk?" 

"Certainly  I  can  milk." 


PEOM  CUBERO  TO  SAN  MATEO  193 

"Well,  I  wish  you'd  come  out  and  help  us. 
There  are  only  three  men  in  the  house,  and  I  hate 
to  tackle  such  a  job  short-handed." 

We  went  out  to  the  corral,  fenced  with  tortuous 
trunks  of  cedar.  The  lair  of  the  cow  was  there. 
So  was  Casimiro  with  a  fifty-foot  reata.  Don 
Amado  had  brought  a  fence  rail,  but  I  was  un- 
armed. The  rest  took  off  their  coats,  and  I  fol- 
lowed suit. 

"Are  you  ready?"  asked  Don  Amado  with  com- 
pressed lips. 

Casimiro  swung  his  noose,  and  dropped  it  deftly 
around  the  horns  of  the  old  sorrel.  She  seemed 
surprised,  and  expostulated ;  but  at  last  we  tripped 
her  with  the  rail,  and  bound  her  hand  and  foot. 
I  was  lost  in  astonishment  at  this  programme, 
but  refrained  from  advertising  myself. 

The  cow  was  now  pried  to  her  feet  and  leaned 
against  the  side  of  the  corral,  being  blindfolded 
with  my  bandanna.  We  had  failed  to  provide  a 
gag  —  which  I  regretted  shortly  afterward  when 
she  gave  me  a  dimple  where  I  could  take  no  real 
pride  in  showing  it. 

Just  as  I  had  the  milking  well  in  hand  the  rope 
broke.  Casimiro  was  let  in  on  the  mud  floor,  I 
was  bucked  into  the  horsepond,  and  the  cow  began 
to  scale  the  fence.  She  started  out  well,  but  the 
posts  were  too  high  for  her  sequel,  and  there  she 


194       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

hung,  a  bovine  see-saw.  Then  was  the  hour  of 
our  triumph.  Her  hind  feet  were  at  once  anchored 
to  the  posts,  and  we  three  hung  on  her  horns  to 
keep  that  end  down  while  poor,  crippled  Madalena 
hobbled  out  and  did  the  milking.  This  done, 
we  had  only  to  chop  down  the  fence,  ease  up  our 
ropes,  and  let  old  sorrel  go.  Simplest  thing  in 
the  world,  when  you  know  how.  It  seemed  a  bit 
complicated  then,  but  I  soon  recovered  from  my 
surprise.  With  immaterial  variations,  that  is  the 
orthodox  way  to  milk  a  New  Mexican  country  cow* 


xm 

TERRITORIAL  TYPES 

Mexican  Superstitions.  —  Patapalo's  Encounter  with  the 
Original  Serpent.  —  A  Meeting  with  the  Devil. — A 
New  Companion.  —  An  Unwilling  Suicide.  —  The  Rock 
Springs  Rancho.  — A  Crucifix  in  Petticoats. — Burros. — 
The  Census  of  the  Saints.  —  The  New  Garden  of  the 
Gods.  —  The  "  Bad  Man  "  and  his  Armament. 

Getting  back  at  last  to  the  railroad,  after  those 
happy  and  instructive  days  at  hospitable  San 
Mateo,  I  was  busy  a  couple  of  days  at  Grant^s 
packing  my  Acoma  relics,  nuggets,  pelts,  and  other 
curios  to  be  shipped  to  Los  Angeles ;  and  had  time 
to  form  some  instructive  acquaintances.  Here  I 
ran  across  a  quaint  old  Mexican  who  was  my  first 
point  of  contact  with  the  remarkable  superstitions 
of  his  people.  Witchcraft  is  firmly  believed  in 
throughout  New  Mexico  to-day;  and  by  no  one 
more  devoutly  than  by  poor  Francisco  Cordoba, 
better  known  as  Patapalo,  or  "Peg-leg."  He  has 
good  grounds  for  the  faith  that  is  in  him;  for 

196 


196       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

years  ago  one  of  the  three  live  brujas  of  San  Kaf  ael 

—  whom  I  had  the  pleasure  of  photographing  later 

—  bewitched  him,  and  twisted  his  legs  so  horribly 
that  he  scarce  can  walk.  And  that  has  not  been  his 
only  experience  with  the  supernatural.  Years  ago, 
when  he  lived  in  Socorro,  he  had  a  very  remark- 
able adventure,  as  I  have  heard  from  his  own  lips. 

A  friend  said  to  him  one  day :  "  Patapalo,  why 
are  you  so  stupid?  Come  with  me  to-night  and  I 
will  make  you  the  wisest  man  in  the  world  —  so 
that  you  can  play  any  music,  talk  any  language, 
know  what  happens  a  hundred  miles  away." 
Patapalo  demurred  at  first,  but  consented  after 
long  solicitation.  What  occurred  is  best  told  in 
his  own  words  —  or  rather  in  an  exact  translation 
of  them. 

"That  night,  it  might  be  eight  o'clock,  Jos^ 
came  for  me,  and  we  started  walking  across  the 
plain.  After  we  had  gone  a  matter  of  a  half  hour 
we  found  10,000  mesquite  bushes.  I  was  often 
there  before,  but  never  saw  a  single  mesquite.  I 
said,  *What  is  this  thing?'  but  Josd  said,  'Keep 
your  tongue  to  your  teeth  and  come  on. '  Then  I 
saw  that  each  bush  had  a  rosary  hanging  on  it.  I 
was  to  speak,  but  at  the  moment  we  came  to  a 
door,  very  great,  and  with  an  iron  lock.  Jos4 
knocked.  A  voice  within  replied,  *Who  comes?' 
Jos^  said,  *We  are  two.     One  is  ignorant.'     Then 


TERRITORIAL  TYPES  197 

the  door  opened  itself,  and  we  went  into  a  room, 
so  large  I  could  not  see  the  end  of  it.  It  was  very- 
light  and  I  saw  hundreds  of  people.  The  men 
were  on  the  one  side  of  the  room  and  the  women 
on  the  other  side.  Many  of  them  I  knew,  from 
Socorro  and  other  places.  In  the  middle  were 
hundreds  of  musicians  with  all  classes  of  instru- 
ments —  many  such  as  I  never  saw  before.  Then 
the  musicians  went  to  play  very  fine  music,  and 
the  men  and  women  danced  together. 

"Such  fine  dancers  I  have  never,  never  seen. 
Then  a  very  large  goat  came  in  and  spoke  to  all, 
and  everybody  had  to  kiss  him.  And  when  the 
goat  had  gone  there  was  a  snake  —  of  larger  body 
than  mine  —  came  in  upright.  And  it  came  to 
every  man  and  wound  itself  around  him  and  put 
its  tongue  in  his  mouth,  and  the  same  to  every 
woman.  And  when  he  did  so  they  talked  words 
which  I  could  not  understand.  But  when  he 
came  to  me  and  put  his  face  before  mine,  my  heart 
left  me,  and  I  cried,  'Jesus,  Mary,  and  Joseph,  save 
me ! '  And  at  the  instant  I  was  standing  alone  in 
the  plain  and  the  snake  was  gone,  and  the  people 
and  Jose,  and  there  was  only  a  strong  smell  of 
asufre.  1  walked  home  a  long  way  very  much 
alarmed.  Next  day  I  saw  Jos^  and  he  said,  'Fool! 
The  snake  was  ready  to  give  you  the  tongue  of 
wisdom,  but  you  called  the  holy  name  and  ruined 


198       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE-  CONTINENT 

all. '  He  wanted  me  to  go  again,  but  I  was  afraid 
and  never  did.  No,  I  had  not  been  drinking  a 
drop  since  many  weeks.'* 

Every  old-time  paisano  remembers,  too,  the 
experience  of  Ambrosio  Trujillo  —  now  gone  to 
his  long  account.  He  was  sadly  addicted  to 
liquor,  and  his  oaths  generally  took  the  form  of  an 
invocation  to  Satan.  One  fine  moonlight  night  as 
Ambrosio  was  reeling  homeward,  he  stubbed  his 
toe,  and  angrily  cried  "  that  the  devil  take  me ! " 
Instantly  his  Sulphurous  Majesty  sprang  from  the 
heart  of  a  rock  close  by  with  a  polite  "jBwenas 
noches,  amigo!  what  wilt  thou?" 

"  Come,  take  a  drink  with  me,"  replied  Ambrosio, 
nothing  abashed. 

"Thanks!  "  said  Satan,  "but  I  never  drink." 

Ambrosio  came  nearer,  —  he  was,  drunk  or  sober, 
a  fearless  man,  —  and  the  devil  suddenly  vanished, 
leaving  only  a  strong  smell  of  brimstone.  He 
had  human  form,  but  his  eyes  and  mouth  were 
living  fire.  Ambrosio  went  home  a  changed  man. 
From  that  time  on  he  never  dared  go  out  at  night; 
and  to  the  hour  of  his  death,  three  years  after- 
ward, he  never  drank  another  drop. 

Side  by  side  with  these  quaint  phases  of  native 
life  and  thought  I  found  as  interesting  types  of 
the  practical  and  unconventional.  The  99,000 
acre  rancho  of  the  Acoma  Land  and  Cattle  Com- 


TERRITORIAL  TYPES  199 

pany  touches  Grant's;  and  then  and  there  began 
friendships  with  some  of  its  cowboys,  which  have 
since  brought  many  pleasant  experiences.  They 
were  not  all  rough  men,  —  some  had  more  than  the 
average  education,  —  but  the  roughest  were  men. 
Poor,  brave,  loyal  Frank  West,  whose  life  was 
pitched  out  lately  by  a  bucking  bronco,  was  a 
man  of  uncommon  parts.  He  was  an  unmitigated 
cowboy,  but  a  well  educated  one  —  a  clergyman's 
son  who  had  drifted  into  this  wild  life  not  from 
wildness,  but  for  health.  His  speech  was  a 
Joseph's  coat  of  many  colors  —  with  remnants  of 
the  college  slang  around  which  had  accreted  a 
wonderful  conglomerate  of  the  breezy  idiom  of  the 
frontier.  He  was  the  terror  of  cattle  thieves,  but 
never  quarrelsome  —  a  quiet,  gentle,  unpretentious 
hero,  and  with  a  keen  eye  to  the  humorous  side. 

When  Shadow  and  I  started  west  again  from 
Grant's,  we  had  acquired  a  new  companion  and  a 
much  worse  one  than  weak-kneed  but  kind-hearted 
Phillips.  It  was  a  Pennsylvania  sewing-machine 
agent  whom  we  will  call  Locke.  He  had  seen  in 
the  Albuquerque  papers  something  about  our  jour- 
ney, and  got  off  the  cars  at  Grant's  to  accompany 
us.  He  had  left  a  dollar  or  two,  and  a  great 
wealth  of  confidence,  and  nearly  "  talked  our  ears 
off."  He  was  a  gentleman  of  chronic  woes,  and 
in  the  first  hour  of  acquaintance  told  me  sorrows 


200       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

enough  to  have  swamped  the  Great  Eastern  had 
she  tried  to  carry  them  all. 

For  the  first  few  miles  the  walking,  though  bad, 
was  not  seriously  so;  but  we  were  fast  climbing 
the  Continental  Divide,  gaining  about  one  hundred 
feet  in  altitude  with  every  mile  —  and  with  every 
mile  progress  grew  more  di£&cult.  By  noon  we 
were  in  six-inch  snow;  and  this  grew  continually 
deeper,  until  it  was  almost  to  our  knees.  "We 
cooked  lunch  over  a  fire  of  chips,  hacked  with  my 
hunting-knife  from  a  dead  cedar,  and  pushed  on. 
Shadow  was  enjoying  himself  hugely,  for  the  coun- 
try was  alive  with  cotton-tails,  and  in  the  deep 
snow  he  caught  several;  but  we  bipeds  were  not 
quite  so  happy.  My  companion,  having  told  all 
his  hoarded  troubles,  now  found  new  ones  to  engage 
his  attention.  He  kept  wishing  he  were  dead,  and 
at  last  declared  that  he  would  kill  himself  if  he 
only  knew  how!  It  was  very  hard  to  keep  from 
laughing;  but  with  a  very  solemn  face  I  handed 
him  one  of  my  six-shooters,  saying :  "  Here,  help 
yourself!  You  are  quite  right!  "  But  he  gave  me 
a  look  of  ineffable  reproach,  pushed  away  the 
proffered  panacea  for  his  woes,  and  declared  that 
he  didn't  see  how  people  could  be  such  heartless 
brutes !  As  night  came  on  matters  looked  rather 
gloomy.  It  had  become  very  cold,  the  snow  was 
full  knee-deep,  and  we  were  wet,  cold,  and  hungry. 


TERRITORIAL  TYPES  201 

At  last,  when  it  was  quite  dark,  the  man  of  woes 
sat  down  in  the  snow  and  refused  to  go  any  farther. 
I  tried  to  cheer  him  up,  for  Chaves  could  not  be 
more  than  five  miles  ahead ;  but  he  declared  that 
he  would  not  budge  another  inch  —  he  was  going  to 
die  right  there  —  and  began  to  cry  like  a  child.  It 
is  a  dreadful  thing  to  hear  a  man  cry,  even  when 
you  feel  contempt  for  his  tears ;  and  for  a  moment 
I  even  thought  of  taking  him  up  forcibly  and  carry- 
ing him.  But  as  he  weighed  one  hundred  and 
seventy  pounds  and  I  one  hundred  and  forty-five 
that  was  out  of  the  question. 

Just  then  I  caught  the  blessed  glimmer  of  a  light 
among  the  pinons  only  a  few  hundred  yards  away. 
Even  this  did  not  serve  to  start  Locke,  and  I  had 
to  get  him  up  by  brute  force  and  some  very  savage 
threats.  We  stumbled  through  the  snow  to  a  poor 
little  Mexican  ranch-house,  where  the  courteous 
owner  and  his  huge  wife  were  very  kind.  They 
toasted  us  before  the  blazing  mud  fire-place  and 
turned  themselves  out  of  bed  to  give  a  comfortable 
couch  to  two  bedraggled,  disreputable-looking 
strangers ;  and  then  that  foolish  Locke  lay  awake 
all  night,  fearing  that  if  he  went  to  sleep  our  hosts 
would  cut  our  throats  for  his  dollar.  Poor  Juan 
Arragon  and  poor  fat  wife !  They  long  ago  went 
to  a  world  where  I  hope  they  were  as  hospitably 
cared  for  as  they  cared  for  us.     In  the  morning 


202       A  TEAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

they  gave  us  the  last  morsel  in  the  shabby  little 
home,  and  proudly  declined  my  proffered  money. 
Their  hospitality  was  not  for  sale  —  it  was  from 
the  heart,  as  with  all  their  kindly  race.  I  shall 
not  soon  forget  the  Kock  Springs  ranch;  nor  its 
bright  boy,  rejoicing  in  the  startling  name  —  com- 
mon enough  among  his  people  —  of  Jesus  Maria; 
nor  its  score  of  mongrel  curs  who  sore  beset  poor 
Shadow;  nor  even  its  curious  crucifixes.  Upon 
the  walls  were  four  or  five  little  bronze  statuettes, 
representing  the  Saviour  upon  the  cross,  naked  save 
for  the  customary  cloth  about  the  loins.  Some- 
how, though,  this  was  not  quite  up  to  the  Mexican 
ideas  of  propriety,  so  around  the  waist  of  each 
figure  they  had  put  a  funny  little  frilled  calico 
petticoat ! 

And  "Paloma,"the  snow-white  burro  at  Rock 
Springs,  reminds  me  that  I  have  been  shamefully 
long  in  coming  to  that  corner-stone  of  New  Mexi- 
can independence,  the  burro.  This  pocket  edition 
of  the  donkey  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  natives 
and  ornaments  of  the  Southwest.  He  is  a  shade 
larger  than  the  jackrabbit,  and  as  strong  as  a  horse. 
It  is  no  rare  thing  to  see  a  half -cord  of  wood,  or  a 
quorum  of  a  ton  of  hay  meandering  across  the  aim- 
less New  Mexican  landscape.  This  is  apt  to  puzzle 
the  stranger,  but  the  native  accepts  it  without 
astonishment.     A  careful  analysis  always  shows  a 


TERRITORIAL  TYPES  203 

base  of  burro  in  the  mass.  As  a  pack-beast  he  is 
matchless  —  patient,  strong,  sure-footed  as  a  moun- 
tain-shesp.  As  a  saddle  animal,  he  is  intermittent 
but  advantageous.  He  cannot  help  the  size  of  his 
ears ;  and  they  are  no  mean  shelter  to  the  rider. 
If  you  get  saddle -weary,  you  just  put  your  feet 
down  and  let  him  walk  on  from  under.  If  he  were 
to  tire,  you  could  put  a  shawl-strap  on  him  and 
take  him  home.  I  have  never  known  this  neces- 
sity to  arise ;  but  those  who  have  ridden  that  noble 
animal,  the  horse,  on  these  Southwestern  plains  and 
have  had  now  and  then  to  walk  home  and  "  pack  " 
the  saddle,  will  appreciate  this  advantage.  So  you 
get  your  animal  back  to  camp,  it  really  matters 
little  whether  you  take  him  as  a  seat  or  as  hand- 
baggage.  If  his  face  be  a  fair  index,  the  burro  is 
the  wisest  thing  in  the  creation  —  an  owl  looks  the 
greenhorn  beside  him.  He  is  also  the  sleepiest. 
He  sometimes  lies  down  for  a  nap,  but  that  is 
needless.  He  can  sleep  equally  well  standing  or 
in  putative  motion.  And  yet,  when  he  runs  wild, 
—  as  he  does  in  herds  of  several  hundred,  in  some 
remote  localities,  —  the  fleetest  horse  can  barely 
overhaul  him  in  a  long  chase.  And  when  young, 
and  particularly  when  furred  with  cockle-burs,  he 
is  the  ^^cunningest"  thing  on  earth. 

It  is  an  error  to  deem  him  stupid.     He  is  like 
his  master  —  a  deal  wittier  than  he  looks.     We 


204       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

hear  little  of  New  Mexican  humor;  but  an  Irish- 
man could  hardly  have  bettered  the  famous  "  Census 
of  the  Saints." 

A  Frenchman,  settled  in  New  Mexico,  fell  in  dis- 
pute with  a  native  as  to  which  nation  had  the  more 
saints. 

"  PerOy^^  said  the  Mexican  at  last,  " already  makes 
an  hour  that  we  argue  ourselves  without  to  finish 
nothing.  Vamos!  To  the  proof!  That  we  seat 
ourselves  here  joined.  Then  name  thou  thy  saint 
and  pull  out  for  him  a  hair  of  my  chin,  and  I  will 
do  the  same.  So,  poco  pronto^  we  shall  count  and 
see  to  whom  are  more  of  saints." 

'^C'est  hien.  Saint  Sulpice,"  said  the  French- 
man, plucking  a  hair  from  his  adversary's  beard 
and  laying  it  upon  the  table. 

"San  Juan,"  retorted  the  Mexican,  in  kind. 

"Sainte  Marie."     (A  hair.) 

"Santa  Ana."  " 

"Saint  Marc."  " 

"San  Pablo."  " 

So  it  went  for  ten  minutes.  Then  the  exasper- 
ated Mexican  ended  the  argument  and  his  tally- 
sheet  by  wrenching  a  whole  fistful  from  the  chin 
of  the  Gaul  with  a  triumphant  yell  of  "  Los  docs 
apostolos  de  una  vez  !  "  ^ 

The  snow  grew  deeper  and  deeper  as  we  toiled 
1  *•  The  Twelve  Apostles  at  once! " 


TERRITORIAL  TYPES  ff  WiJivVrsIT 

up  the  grade  next  day.  At  noon  we  stood  iifHifc^^UFofiHV! 
the  crest  of  the  Continental  Divide  —  that  vast 
water-shed,  7297  feet  above  the  sea,  from  whose 
eastern  slope  the  rain-drops  find  their  way  to  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  while  those  upon  the  western  side 
are  borne  to  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

Six  miles  down  hill  brought  us  to  Coolidge 
and  the  first  mail  I  had  had  in  a  month.  This 
was  the  only  town  of  one  hundred  people  (ex- 
cept the  Indian  pueblos)  between  Albuquerque 
and  Winslow,  nearly  three  hundred  miles.  Be- 
yond Coolidge  the  mud  and  slush  soon  became 
awful  to  contemplate,  and  we  had  to  walk  all  day 
upon  the  ends  of  the  ties,  which  were  generally 
clear  on  the  south  side  of  the  track.  I  had  a  good 
time  all  the  morning  picking  up  beautiful  petri- 
factions, both  of  shells  and  wood,  and  again  my 
pockets  began  to  appear  like  anvils  in  size  and 
weight.  We  passed  the  little  town  of  Gallup, 
famous  for  its  great  deposits  of  bituminous  coal, 
and  sustained  entirely  by  the  miners.  The  shafts 
are  some  three  miles  north  of  town,  and  are  reached 
by  a  track  whose  grade  is  over  three  hundred  feet 
to  the  mile.  Here  we  left  behind  the  remarkable 
red  sandstone  mesas  which  skirt  the  road  all  the 
way  from  Bluewater,  and  which  form  a  glorious 
panorama  that  is  aptly  termed  "  the  New  Garden 
of  the  Gods."    It  does  indeed  recall  the  Garden  at 


206       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

Manitou,  being  of  the  same  tadiant  hue  and  much 
the  same  formation,  but  is  on  a  vastly  more  stupen- 
dous scale,  though  less  grotesque  in  architecture. 
For  fifty  miles  the  red,  rocky  wall  runs  on,  usually 
parallel  with  the  track,  and  three  to  thirty  miles 
from  it,  in  picturesque,  broken,  ever-varying  bluffs, 
two  hundred  to  five  hundred  feet  in  height.  Their 
usual  form  is  that  of  rectangular  or  square  blocks, 
hundreds  of  feet  in  each  dimension,  and  fronting 
toward  the  track  almost  as  regularly  as  a  row  of 
business  buildings.  A  few,  particularly  at  the 
eastern  end,  are  eroded  into  terraced  castles;  and 
others  have  assumed  more  strange  and  irregu- 
lar shapes.  But  the  finest  easily  accessible  freaks 
of  this  strange  gallery  are  a  short  distance  west  of 
Wingate.  From  the  fort  itself  one  notes  two 
small,  peculiar,  twin  pinnacles,  rising  above  an 
intervening  ridge.  As  one  walks  on  down  the 
track  from  the  station,  the  baffling  ridge  slowly 
fades  away,  and  soon  one  stands  in  wonder  before 
that  strange  piece  of  nature's  architecture  —  "the 
Navajo  church."  Back  half  a  mile  from  the  dress- 
parade  of  red-coated  giants  it  stands  —  a  vast 
cathedral  hewn  aptly  from  the  solid  rock  by 
Time's  patient  hand.  You  see  it  all  there;  the 
vast  bulk  of  nave  and  transept,  of  pillar,  arch,  and 
dome ;  while  in  the  middle  front,  exactly  as  human 
art  could  have  placed  it,   soars  aloft  the  dizzy 


TERRITORIAL  TYPES  20T 

tower  with  its  slender  pinnacles.  Here  the  soft 
gray  sandstone  comes  out  in  exquisite  contrast  to 
the  deep  prevailing  red.  Just  beyond  the  church 
is  "  Pyramid  Rock, "  a  curious,  conical  peak,  high- 
est of  all  the  mesas,  and  beautiful  in  hue  and 
contour.  This  strange  wall  parts  company  with 
the  railroad  near  Gallup,  but  by  no  means  ends 
here.  Its  ruby  cliffs  run  across  clear  to  the  big 
Colorado  Eiver,  with  breaks  and  variations,  and  far 
up  north  into  the  Navajo  Reservation,  full  of 
strangely  beautiful  freaks  of  form  and  color. 
Among  their  curious  parks  are  found  the  beautiful 
Navajo  garnets,  some  of  which  are  handsome  as 
rubies ;  the  pretty  olivines,  and  other  semi-precious 
stones.  These  are  not  dug  up  by  the  prospector, 
but  mined  exclusively  by  very  small,  very  red,  and 
very  pugnacious  six-legged  miners — namely,  by  the 
ants.  Their  tall  hills  are  the  original  and  aborig- 
inal garnet  diggings;  and  among  their  little 
"  dumps  "  of  tiny  pebbles  I  have  picked  up  many 
a  clear  pigeon-blood  garnet  and  light  green  olivine, 
and  one  precious  pellet  of  an  emerald.  The 
Navajos  —  whose  reservation  lies  north  of  the 
track  and  parallel  with  it  for  fifty  miles  here  — 
gather  and  bring  in  these  stones  by  the  handful 
and  sell  them  to  the  traders.  Most  of  them  are 
small;  but  I  have  seen  a  perfect  one  of  twenty -five 
carats.     One  of  the  right  color,  free  from  flaws, 


208       A  TRAM?  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

and  large  enough  to  cut  in  carbuncle,  is  a  beauti- 
ful and  a  very  valuable  gem.  There  are  also  fine 
topazes.  None  of  the  higher  gems  have  ever  been 
found  in  New  Mexico  —  unless  we  except  the 
famous  Canon  de  Tsayee  [generally  miscalled  du 
Chelly]  swindle  of  a  few  years  ago,  when  two 
French  sharpers  salted  that  lonely  and  distant 
cafion  with  South  African  diamonds,  bought  up 
the  expert  who  was  sent  out,  and  got  $200,000 
out  of  their  scheme  before  the  rascality  was 
exposed. 

There  was  little  else  of  interest  until  Manuelito, 
the  last  station  in  New  Mexico,  except  a  curious 
coward  who  kept  an  Indian  trading-post  at  Defi- 
ance. On  a  shelf  which  went  around  under  the 
whole  long  counter  of  his  stone  store,  he  had  more 
than  a  hundred  loaded  and  cocked  rifles  and  six- 
shooters;  and  he  took  great  delight  in  showing 
how  rapidly  he  could  whirl  from  the  goods  on  the 
high  shelves,  snatch  a  firearm  in  each  hand,  and 
"throw  down"  on  us  —  a  rather  risky  object  les- 
son. He  was,  as  one  might  see  at  first  glance,  a 
real  specimen  of  a  class  now  happily  about  extinct 
—  a  man  about  five-feet-ten  in  height,  of  heavy 
and  muscular  frame,  a  face  with  regular  but  hard 
features,  the  neck  of  a  bull,  and  the  under  jaw  of 
a  terrapin ;  dressed  in  a  soiled  percale  shirt  and 
bell-bottomed  pants  fringed  with  solid  silver  but- 


TERKITORIAL  TYPES  209 

tons  down  the  outside  of  each  leg.  He  was  the 
utmost  type  of  the  "  holy  terror  "  of  the  West,  the 
"Ba-ad  Man  from  Bodie,"  the  "Howling  Woll 
from  the  headwaters  of  Bitter  Creek."  The  most 
fanciful  eastern  correspondent  could  not  exagger* 
ate  —  if  he  could  fairly  do  justice  to  —  this  Man  oi 
Gore.  His  only  conversation  was  of  shooting  and 
cutting,  and  of  "  what  a  holy  time  "  he  had  kill- 
ing off  enough  Navajos  to  keep  the  rest  humble; 
illustrating  how  he  would  pump  any  one  who 
molested  him  so  full  of  lead  that  some  tenderfoot 
would  come  along  and  locate  a  claim  there  j  and  in 
general  letting  us  know  what  a  "  terror  on  wheels  " 
he  was.  Poor  Locke  listened  with  his  chin  drop- 
ping, and  Shadow  kept  to  a  modest  corner.  But 
his  status  was  plain  enough.  He  was  mereiy  some 
eastern  hoodlum,  out  here  for  two  or  three  years, 
living  in  constant  terror  of  the  Navajos  and  tramps, 
which  he  endeavored  to  conceal  by  murderous 
talk  and  braggadocio.  A  few  Indians  came  in  to 
trade,  and  he  bullyragged  and  browbeat  them 
unmercifully.  A  rather  handsome  young  Navajo 
named  John,  employed  to  herd  his  cattle,  came  in 
from  the  cold  day's  ride,  and  was  abused  and 
reviled  as  few  men  ever  were.  Then  Smith  told 
me  how  a  former  servant  had,  upon  being  dis- 
charged, broken  into  the  store  during  his  absence, 
and  stolen  $300  worth  of  goods.     Smith  and  a 


210   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

companion  saddled  their  horses  and  set  out  in 
pursuit  as  soon  as  a  traitorous  Navajo,  tempted  by- 
reward,  revealed  the  hiding-place  of  his  fellow. 
They  came  back  with  the  stolen  goods  and  a 
blanket  rolled  around  a  vest  and  pair  of  pants, 
stiff  with  gore.  They  had  "  found  the  cuss  where 
he  got  sorry  and  committed  suicide." 

"What,"  said  I,  "a  Navajo  commit  suicide  for 
remorse  at  stealing?  " 

"Ya-as,"  answered  the  bad  man,  "an'  I'll  give 

some   more  of  the the  same  chance  to  kill 

themselves  if  they  ain't careful."     Then  he 

had  the  effrontery  to  show  me  that  hideously 
besmeared  clothing,  with  a  round  hole  on  the  left 
flap,  of  the  breast  and  back.  There  was  not  a 
grain  of  powder  in  it,  and  that  showed  that  the 
fatal  ball  came  from  a  distance.  The  truth  of  the 
story  is,  as  I  learned,  that  Smith  and  his  chum 
overtook  the  young  thief,  and  with  a  single  bullet 
settled  both  him  and  his  horse.  They  cut  off  the 
Indian's  clothes,  leaving  the  poor  devil  on  the 
frozen  ground  in  November.  He  lived  for  nine- 
teen days,  having  been  found  by  Indians  and  taken 
to  his  hogan. 

The  oral  desperado's  dreadful  talk  was  to  im- 
press us  and  scare  us  out  of  any  possible  burgla- 
rious scheme. 

JJe  did  not  dare  to  let  us  sleep  in  the  store,  SQ 


TERRITORIAL  TYPES  211 

we  went  over  to  a  little  ranch  building  hard  by, 
along  with  his  clever  assistant.  The  wind  whistled 
through  big  cracks,  and  I  could  see  the  sky  in  a 
dozen  places  overhead,  but  we  slept  very  warmly, 
nevertheless,  under  many  blankets  and  an  old 
wagon-sheet  spread  upon  the  floor. 


XIV 

WITH  THE  NOMADS 

Among  the  Navajos.  —  Strange  Indians.  —  Wandering  Jew- 
elers. —  Barbaric  Silver  and  Costly  Blankets.  —  Mys- 
terious Beads.  — A  Navajo  Matrimonial  Agency.  —  Over 
a  Cliff. 

At  Manuelito  Locke  said  his  shoes  were  getting 
thin,  and  he  guessed  he'd  take  the  cars.  Phillips 
had  walked  thirty-eight  miles  with  me,  and  Locke 
seventy-eight.  His  departure  was  a  relief,  for 
Shadow  alone  was  much  better  company.  Here  I 
scraped  an  interesting  acquaintance  with  the  Nava- 
jos, and  acquired  a  load  of  their  characteristic 
treasures  —  including  a  lot  of  the  barbaric  silver 
bracelets,  belt-disks,  earrings,  etc.,  and  a  magnifi- 
cent blanket  of  their  matchless  weaving.  Although 
among  the  most  savage  aborigines  of  the  West,  the 
Navajos  excel  in  two  semi-civilized  industries. 
They  number  about  twenty  thousand.  Their  reser- 
vation, lying  part  in  northwestern  New  Mexico  and 
part  in  northeastern  Arizona,  is  a  huge  wilderness 
212 


WITH  THE  NOMADS  213 

without  towns  or  houses,  but  dotted  here  and  there 
with  their  little  corn-patches  and  rude,  lone  hogans 
—  temporary  tent-shaped  huts  of  logs  and  earth. 
They  are  absolute  nomads,  and  never  stay  long  in 
one  hogan  —  and  will  never  enter  it  again  when 
death  has  once  been  in  it.  They  are  the  wealthiest 
nomad  Indians  in  the  United  States,  and  perhaps 
in  the  world.  Their  enormous  herds  of  inbred  but 
tireless  and  beautiful  ponies  —  descendants  of  the 
Arab  horses  brought  by  the  Spanish,  for  there  were 
no  horses  in  either  America  before  the  conquest  — 
are  not  their  only  riches.  They  have  great  wealth 
of  the  superb  blankets  of  their  own  weaving;  a 
hundred  thousand  head  of  cattle,  and  a  million  and 
a  half  of  sheep,  and  vast  store  of  silver  ornaments 
of  their  own  manufacture. 

Silver  is  the  only  metal  used  by  either  Pueblo  or 
Navajo  for  purposes  of  ornamentation.  For  gold 
they  have  no  use  whatever;  and  it  is  only  those 
approximate  to  the  railroad  and  therefore  conver- 
sant with  white  man's  ways,  that  will  even  receive 
Uncle  Sam's  yellow  dinero.  Their  supply  of  silver 
is  now  drawn  almost  exclusively  from  civilized 
coin. 

The  silversmith  among  either  Pueblos  or  Navajos 
is  a  person  of  mighty  influence.  Upon  his  inven- 
tive and  mechanical  skill,  each  aborigine  depends 
for  the  wherewithal  to  cut  an  imposing  figure  at 


214       A  TRAMP   ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

the  feast-day  dance  or  the  bet-staggering  horse-race. 
His  tools  are  simple,  not  to  say  crude.  A  hammer 
or  two,  a  three-cornered  file,  a  rude  iron  punch, 
and  a  primitive  arrangement  for  soldering,  com- 
prise his  outfit.  If  a  Pueblo,  one  of  the  neat  little 
rooms  in  his  house,  equipped  with  a  little  bench, 
serves  him  for  a  workshop;  if  a  Navajo,  his  smithy 
is  under  the  alleged  shelter  of  his  hogan;  and  a 
smooth  stone  is  his  work-bench. 

The  simplest  form  of  silver  ornament  is  the  but- 
ton, a  decoration  of  which  both  races  are  immensely 
fond.  Neither  of  them  uses  the  button  in  its  legit- 
imate role  of  constrained  intimacy  with  a  button- 
hole. Some  of  them  wear  American  vests  with 
American  buttons,  but  the  home-made  silver  button 
is  reserved  solely  for  purposes  of  decoration  and  not 
of  repression.  It  serves  to  set  off  moccasin,  leg- 
ging, belt,  pistol-belt,  gun-scabbard,  saddle  and 
bridle,  and  also  the  little  leathern  pouch  which 
goes  in  lieu  of  pockets.  The  commonest  button  is 
made  from  a  silver  dime,  strongly  arched,  polished 
smooth,  and  with  a  tiny  eyelet  soldered  down  in 
the  concavity  of  the  under  side,  far  beyond  the 
reach  of  a  needle,  and  therefore  fastenable  only  by 
a  wee  thong  of  buckskin.  These  dime  buttons  are 
largely  used  in  decorating  the  edges  of  a  broad 
strap  or  similar  article.  Buttons  made  of  a  twenty- 
five  cent  piece  and  those  from  a  half  dollar  are 


WITH   THE   NOMADS  215 

more  worn  as  simple  ornaments,  at  knees  or  throat. 
I  have  seen  a  venerable  Navajo  with  twenty  buttons 
fastened  to  the  welt-seam  of  each  legging;  each 
button  made  of  a  quarter,  and  with  the  die  perfect 
on  each,  despite  the  rounded  form.  From  plain 
buttons  to  ornamented  ones  is  but  a  step.  The 
simplest  design  is  made  by  filing  a  number  of  con- 
centric rays  upon  a  button;  and  from  this,  up  to 
really  elaborate  work,  there  are  designs  of  all 
sorts. 

Akin  to  the  buttons  are  the  striking  belt-disks 
which  glisten  upon  every  well-to-do  Pueblo  and 
Navajo  on  festal  occasions.  These  are  always  cir- 
cular, slightly  arched,  average  four  inches  in  di- 
ameter, are  handsomely  made,  and  average  $3  in 
weight.  From  eight  to  a  dozen  of  these  are  worn, 
strung  upon  a  narrow  thong  as  a  belt.  Some 
ultra-dandies  have  a  shoulder-belt  of  them  besides. 

In  horse-trappings,  the  well-to-do  Navajo  is  par- 
ticularly gorgeous.  Besides  a  large  weight  of  sun- 
dry silver  ornaments  on  his  saddle,  his  "  Sunday  " 
bridle  is  one  mass  of  silver,  and  but  an  infinitesi- 
mal fraction  of  the  leather  substratum  is  visible. 
It  is  nothing  uncommon  to  see  $40  to  $60  weight 
in  silver  on  one  bridle.  The  straps  are  covered 
with  silver  sheaths,  and  more  or  less  heavy  pen- 
dants dangle  upon  the  foretop  and  from  the  bits. 
The  Pueblos  occasionally  thus  be-silver  their  bri- 


216       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

dies,  but  are  not  as  daft  about  the  custom  as  are 
the  Kavajos. 

The  most  popular  form  of  jewelry  with  both  races 
is  the  bracelet.  In  early  days  it  had  its  useful  as 
well  as  its  ornamental  adaptation.  To  protect  the 
left  wrist  from  the  vicious  sting  of  the  bow  string, 
the  men  very  commonly  wore  a  broad  wristlet  of 
leather,  tied  at  one  side  with  a  buckskin  thong. 
Those  who  were  able  to  afford  it  put  a  silver  disk 
on  the  upper  side  of  this,  making  a  very  striking 
bracelet.  Specimens  of  these,  however,  are  now 
extremely  rare.  It  was  my  good  fortune  at  Manu- 
elito to  acquire  an  ancient  Zuiii  wristlet,  its  silver 
top  rudely  engraved  with  the  sacred  image  of  the 
full-rayed  sun;  but  I  have  never  since  been  able 
to  duplicate  it. 

Ordinarily,  however,  with  both  races  the  brace- 
let is  merely  ornamental,  and  is  worn  equally  by 
men  and  women.  From  one  to  a  dozen  may  be 
seen  on  a  single  wrist,  but  the  average  number  is 
about  three.  The  simplest  bracelets  —  commonest 
with  the  Kavajos  —  are  simply  round  circlets, 
generally  tapering  a  little  to  the  ends,  and  marked 
with  little  file-cut  lines.  A  silver  dollar  is  usually 
entirely  used  up  in  hammering  one  of  them  out. 
A  step  higher  are  the  flat  bands  now  more  in 
vogue.  The  Pueblos  tend  to  light  ones,  and  the 
Navajos  to  heavy.     I  have  one  made  by  Chit-Chi, 


WITH  THE  NOMADS  217 

the  best  silversmith  of  the  Navajos,  which  is  an 
inch  and  a  half  wide  in  its  greatest  breadth,  and 
weighs  $3.  Some  of  these  band  bracelets  are  still 
ornamented  with  a  file,  but  the  prettiest  are  figured 
ty  countless  punchings  with  a  little  die.  The 
Pueblo  silversmiths  have  invented  two  designs 
peculiar  to  themselves,  and  sometimes  solder  a  very 
ciaste  relief  design  upon  the  smooth  band,  and 
sometimes  tip  the  ends  with  little  balls.  Neither 
o:  these  customs  has  been  followed  by  their  cruder 
n3ighbors  on  the  west.  Indeed,  the  average  of 
Pueblo  workmanship  in  silver  is  far  above  that 
of  the  Navajos ;  and  some  of  it  is  really  beautiful. 
Next  to  the  bracelet  in  importance,  and  also 
vorn  by  both  sexes,  is  the  earring.  It  doesn't  hurt 
aboriginal  ears  to  suffer,  and  one  general  charac- 
teristic of  New  Mexican  native  ear-gear  is  its 
generous  weight.  The  commonest  design  is  a 
simple,  file-marked  silver  wire  bent  to  a  circle, 
and  with  one  end  filed  smaller  than  the  other. 
The  wearers  take  off  their  earrings  but  rarely;  and 
the  ends  of  the  stiff  wire  are  brought  together  in 
the  ear  with  a  few  hammer-taps.  A  favorite  ear- 
ring is  a  smooth  wire  circle  with  a  sliding  silver 
ball  on  it.  Others  are  made  flat.  This  about 
covers  the  Navajo  line  of  ingenuity,  but  the 
Pueblo  craftsmen  devise  some  decidedly  clever 
designs.     A  Zuiii  smith  made  a  very  complicated 


218   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

affair  with  two  native  emerald  knobs  in  the  lower 
extremities;  and  a  pair  of  Acoma  earrings  are 
graceful  crescents  with  an  attempt  at  filigree  fill- 
ing. Both  these  rather  uncommon  specimens 
fasten  with  a  hinged  catch. 

Beads    of  some  sort  are   indispensable  to  the 
happiness  of  either  Pueblo  or  Kavajo,  and  only- 
three  varieties  are  used  —  coral,  silver,  and  shel. 
The  coral  necklaces  are  of  the  very  best,  —  it  is 
impossible  to  palm  off  on  them  an  inferior  qualitr, 
—  are  long  enough  to  go  from  two  to  six  times 
around  the  neck  in  a  loose  loop,  and  sometimes 
cost  as  high  as  $100.     Trinkets  of  any  sort  am 
very  seldom  hung  to  a  coral  necklace.     These  art 
bought,    of   course,    from  the   American   traders 
Shell  necklaces  are  the  most  common,    and  are 
highly  prized.     The  most  valuable  are  of  unknown 
antiquity  and  of  an  unknown  shell,  thin,  pinkish,  i 
and  cut  into  little  disks  about  one-fourth  of  an  inch  i 
in  diameter.     The  commoner  ones  are  made  from 
a  heavier  and  pinker  shell.     Where  these  shells 
come  from,    no   one   knows.     There   is  a  fortune 
awaiting  the  white  man  who  can  find  out.     On 
shell  necklaces  it  is  common  to  hang  turquoise 
pendants  every  two  or  three  inches.     These  tur- 
quoise beads  are  oblong  or  flat  pear-shaped,  about 
half  an  inch  to  an  inch  in  length,  and  are  some- 
times valued  at  several  horses  apiece.     All  the 


WITH   THE  NOMADS  219 

aboriginal  tribes  of  the  Southwest  put  an  enormous 
value  on  the  turquoise,  and  it  was  their  chief 
prehistoric  currency.  Most  of  it  is  too  green  to  be 
valuable  in  the  eastern  market,  but  specimens 
have  been  taken  out  as  fine  as  the  costliest  Persian 
stone.  It  is  used  by  the  native  tribes  in  ornaments 
of  nearly  every  sort. 

The  prettiest  necklaces  are  of  silver.  They 
contain  from  thirty  to  one  hundred  round,  hollow 
beads  from  one-fourth  to  three-fourths  of  an  inch 
in  diameter.  The  best  specimens  have  a  three  or 
four  inch  cross  pendant  in  front,  and  a  wee  cross 
strung  after  every  second  or  third  bead.  The 
beads  average  ten  cents  in  price,  and  the  crosses 
fifteen  cents.  How  the  native  workmen,  with 
their  rude  tools,  make  hollow  beads  so  perfectly, 
is  a  marvel. 

Einger-rings  are  a  little  less  numerous,  but  still 
common  enough,  and  remarkable  skill  is  often 
displayed  in  their  workmanship.  Plain  round 
rings  —  of  the  American  matrimonial  pattern  — 
are  almost  unknown  here,  the  fashion  being  in 
chased  bands  and  sets.  The  Navajos  set  native 
garnets  or  turquoise  in  rude  box  settings;  and  the 
Acoma  smith  sometimes  makes  a  curious  attempt 
at  a  crown  setting.  One  of  the  most  notable  native 
rings  I  have  ever  found  here  was  made  for  me 
later  by  Chit-Chi  as  a  token  of  affection,    and 


220       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

entirely  on  his  own  device.  It  is  of  the  nature  of 
a  cameo  ring,  the  "cameo"  being  cut  from  an 
American  dollar,  with  the  Liberty  head  protuber- 
ant upon  it.  I  have  also  some  specimens  of  excel- 
lent inlaid  work  in  these  metals. 

A  silver  ornament  peculiar  to  the  Pueblos  is  the 
dress-pin  worn  by  the  women.  Their  dresses  are 
something  like  blankets,  worn  over  one  shoulder 
and  under  the  other,  reaching  just  below  the 
knees,  and  fastened  down  the  right  side  with  huge 
pins.  These  are  sometimes  brass,  but  generally  of 
silver,  made  by  soldering  two  or  three  twenty-five 
or  fifty  cent  pieces  upon  a  pin.  Sometimes  the 
coins  are  left  intact;  sometimes  polished  and 
chased.  I  have  seen  a  really  elegant  one,  made 
of  a  polished  and  concave  dollar,  covered  with 
relief  work  and  set  with  imitation  opal  from  a 
cheap  American  piece  of  trumpery. 

The  results  of  a  mixture  of  native  workmanship 
with  American  ideas  are  sometimes  curious.  Chit- 
Chi,  who  is  a  brother  of  the  famous  old  ex-chief  of 
the  Navajos,  Manuelito,  —  for  whom  the  station  is 
named,  —  is  a  very  clever  fellow  and  has  done  some 
very  fair  work  for  a  few  American  patrons.  The 
universal  rule  is  with  Pueblo  and  Navajo  smiths 
to  charge  as  much  for  the  work  as  for  the  silver. 
For  instance,  if  you  give  them  a  silver  dollar  for 
the  material  for  a  breast-pin  you  will  have  to  give 


WITH  THE  NOMADS  221 

them  another  for  their  labor  —  and  so  on  up. 
Chit-Chi  is  a  short  but  powerfully  formed  man  of 
pleasant  and  intelligent  face.  Among  my  Indian 
friends  here  was  also  Klah  (the  "  Left-Handed  "), 
a  bronze  giant,  with  whom  I  afterward  had  some 
very  amusing  adventures.  He  is  another  brother 
of  Manuelito. 

Having  caught  up,  at  Manuelito,  with  my  corre- 
spondence, I  strolled  up  over  the  mesas.  A  mile  or 
so  from  the  station,  I  came  upon  a  Navajo  hogan. 
A  superb  blanket  was  being  made  on  the  rude 
loom  J  a  stolid-blinking  wahboose  lay  in  a  corner 
strapped  upon  a  board  and  swathed  till  only  its 
fat  face  and  bead-like  eyes  were  visible;  an  old 
woman  was  washing  out  her  hair  in  a  big  oUaj  her 
sister  was  tanning  a  buckskin,  and  her  daughter 
was  making  bread. 

The  daughter  was  a  real  Navajo  belle,  about  fif- 
teen years  old,  clean,  bright,  and  decidedly  pretty. 
The  old  woman  could  speak  a  little  fractured  Mexi- 
can, and  I  said  to  her  in  that  tongue,  "  That  your 
girl?" 

"Yes." 

"Whatni  you  take  for  her?" 

"  Diez  caballos  "  (ten  horses),  answered  the  crone, 
holding  up  her  ten  fingers,  "  ^sta  muncho  bonita.'* 

I  admitted  that  the  girl  was  bonita,  but  I  didn't 
have  the  ten  horses  with  me  to-day,  and  guessed  I 


222       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

would  not  buy.  She  did  not  come  down  in  her 
price,  but  kej^t  reiterating  that  the  girl  was  both 
buena  and  bonita.  Such  is  maternal  affection 
among  the  Navajos  —  so  different  from  our  Chris- 
tian mothers,  who  never  think  of  wealth,  title,  or 
position,  but  always  of  the  moral  virtues  and  intel- 
lectual decorations  of  a  prospective  son-in-law! 
This  slave-market  system  is  the  ordinary  matri- 
monial etiquette  among  the  barbarous  Navajos. 
Their  civilized  neighbors,  the  Pueblos,  would  never 
think  of  such  an  atrocity. 

The  most  striking  thing  among  the  Navajos  is 
their  blanket-weaving.  They  have  taken  it  up 
since  the  Conquest,  —  for  there  were  neither  sheep 
nor  sheep-wool  in  America  until  the  Spaniards 
came,  —  and  indeed  learned  it  from  the  Pueblos. 
In  prehistoric  times  they  wove  only  cotton  tunics. 
But  now  the  teacher  has  given  up  weaving,  and  the 
pupil  has  gone  far  ahead.  The  Navajos  make  the 
most  durable,  and  handsomest,  and  the  costliest 
blankets  in  the  world ;  and  from  them  down  to  the 
cheapest  and  ugliest.  I  have  in  my  collection 
blankets  worth  ^200  apiece,  which  took  a  solid 
twelve-month  in  the  weaving,  and  will  hold  water. 
The  Navajo  "loom"  is  a  curious  affair.  A  smooth 
branch  is  suspended  by  thongs  from  the  roof  of  the 
hogan;  and  close  to  the  floor  is  another,  attached 
to  the  first  by  stout  cords,  and  weighted  with  rocks 


WITH  THE  NOMADS  228 

SO  as  to  keep  a  proper  tension.  The  stout  cords  of 
the  warp  are  then  stretched  between  these  two  at 
regular  intervals;  and  squatting  before  this  rude 
loom  Mrs.  Navajo  weaves  in  the  woof  by  hand,  a 
thread  at  a  time,  crowding  each  thread  down  tight 
with  a  hardwood  batten  stick. 

Beyond  the  beautiful  mesas  which  are  just  west 
of  Manuelito  the  valley  of  the  Eio  Puerco  of  the 
West  begins  to  narrow,  as  the  creek  has  to  pass 
through  a  small  range  of  hills.  All  along  here  we 
see  big  bands  of  sheep  and  horses,  grazing  con- 
tentedly amid  the  saffrony  sage ;  and  off  to  one^s 
side  one's  eye  may  usually  catch  a  tiny  barbaric 
figure  —  a  Navajo  youngster,  guarding  the  stock. 
It  is  comical  enough  to  see  that  seven  or  eight 
year  old  tot  —  clothed  in  a  single  cotton  garment, 
which  combines  the  attractions  of  the  ballroom  and 
the  ballet,  being  extremely  brief  at  both  ends  — 
standing  out  there  on  the  lonely  plains  as  sole 
guard  over  two  hundred  to  five  hundred  sheep 
and  goats ;  but  apparently  no  whit  worried  or  lone- 
some. 

It  is  painful  to  recall  the  day  after  I  left  Manu- 
elito and  crossed  the  line  into  Arizona,  for  thence- 
forth the  whole  tramp  was  an  experience  one  would 
not  care  to  repeat,  though  it  is  well  to  have  had  it 
once.  The  walking  was  still  atrocious.  We  had 
passed  Billings  with  a  hasty  look  at  the  wonderful 


224       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

petrified  forest,  where  the  ground  for  miles  is 
covered  with  giant  trunks  and  brilliant  chips  of 
trees  that  are  not  only  stone,  but  most  splendid 
stone,  agate  of  every  hue,  with  crystals  of  ame- 
thyst and  smoky  topaz  —  and  camped  in  a  deserted 
Navajo  hogan.  Starting  out  in  the  raw,  gray  dawn, 
we  soon  crossed  the  fresh  trail  of  a  deer.  The 
animal  had  gone  up  a  "draw,"  and  thinking  to 
head  him  off,  I  started  to  climb  the  precipitous 
face  of  a  fifty-foot  mesa  of  shale.  Shadow  sat 
whining  below,  and  watched  as  I  climbed  cau- 
tiously the  crumbling  ledges.  Half-way  up,  as  my 
weight  came  upon  a  jutting  shelf,  it  suddenly 
broke  beneath  my  feet.  The  ledge  to  which  I  was 
holding  crumbled  too;  and  in  a  shower  of  rock  I 
fell  back  sprawling  through  the  air  and  landed 
upon  the  jagged  debris  twenty  feet  below,  and 
knew  no  more. 


XV 

A  STREAK  OF  LEAN 

A  Broken  Arm. — The  Pleasures  of  Self- Surgery.  —  Fifty- 
two  Miles  of  Torture.  —  Winslow.  —  The  Difficulties  of 
a  Transcontinental  Railroad.  —  A  Frank  Advertisement. 
—  The  Parson  and  the  Stolen  Cattle. 

When  life  came  back  to  me,  Shadow  was  licking 
my  face  and  whining  plaintively.  My  whole  body 
was  afire  with  pain,  and  here  and  there  were  red 
drops  upon  the  rocks  and  snow  and  upon  my  cloth- 
ing. My  left  arm  was  doubled  under  me  and 
twisted  between  two  rocks,  and  when  at  last  I 
mustered  strength  and  courage  to  rise,  it  was  to 
make  a  serious  discovery.  That  arm  —  always  my 
largest  and  strongest  —  was  broken  two  inches 
below  the  elbow,  and  the  sharp,  slanting,  lower 
end  of  the  large  bone  protruded  from  the  lacerated 
flesh.  Here  was  a  bad  job  —  an  ugly  fracture,  and 
so  far  from  any  medical  help  that  the  arm  would 
probably  be  past  saving  before  I  could  get  there. 

225 


226        A  111  AMP  ACROSS   THE  CONTINENT 

I  thought  very  hard  for  a  few  moments.  There 
was  but  one  thing  to  be  done  —  the  arm  was  to  be 
put  in  shape  right  there. 

I  placed  the  discolored  hand  between  my  feet 
and  tried  thus  to  tug  the  bone  back  to  its  place ; 
but  flesh  and  blood  could  not  stand  it.  Ah!  The 
strap  of  my  discarded  canteen !  It  was  very  long 
and  broad  and  strong  leather  —  just  the  thing !  I 
gave  it  two  flat  turns  about  the  wrist,  and  buckled 
it  around  a  cedar  tree.  Beside  the  tree  was  a  big 
squarish  rock.  Upon  this  I  mounted,  facing  the 
tree;  set  my  heels  upon  the  very  edge^  clenched 
my  teeth  and  eyes  and  fist,  and  threw  myself 
backward  very  hard.  The  agony,  incomparably 
worse  than  the  first,  made  me  faint;  but  when  I 
recovered  consciousness  the  arm  was  straight  and 
the  fracture  apparently  set  —  as  indeed  it  proved  to 
be.  I  cut  some  branches,  held  them  between  my 
teeth,  trimmed  them  with  the  hunting-knife,  and 
made  rude  splints.  And  then  with  Shadow,  who 
had  been  as  tenderly  and  tactfully  sympathetic  as 
a  brother  through  it  all,  plodding  mournfully  at 
my  side  and  heedless  of  the  rabbits,  I  staggered 
back  toward  the  railroad. 

Ah,  the  torture  of  that  walk !  Cut  and  bruised 
from  head  to  foot;  that  agonizing  arm  quivering 
to  the  jar  of  every  footstep;  weak  with  pain  and 
loss  of  blood,  with  cold,  wet  feet  slipping  in  the 


A  STREAK  OF   LEAN  227 

muddy  snow  —  a  thousand  years  could  not  drown 
the  memory  of  that  bitter  6th  of  January. 

At  the  track  I  found  an  old  spike-keg;  and  ono 
of  the  broad  staves,  cut  in  halves  crosswise  and 
trimmed  a  little,  made  good  splints  which  never 
came  off  until  the  arm  was  well. 

It  was  a  serious  problem  at  first  what  to  do;  but 
after  thinking  it  all  over,  I  decided  to  keep  on. 
It  is  not  pleasant  to  walk  with  a  broken  arm,  but 
neither  is  it  pleasant  to  be  in  bed  with  one.  It 
would  be  a  shame  to  give  up  the  tramp  already  so 
rich  in  interest  and  experience;  and  it  would  be 
quite  as  easy  after  all  to  keep  walking  and  bear 
the  pain  and  get  whatever  distraction  I  might, 
than  to  go  home  by  rail  and  then  have  the  pain  for 
company.  And  so  I  walked  the  remaining  seven 
hundred  miles  to  Los  Angeles  with  the  broken  arm 
slung  in  a  bandanna.  Afterwards  I  had  plenty  of 
chance  to  learn  handiness  with  one  hand;  for  in 
1888  a  stroke  of  paralysis  rendered  this  same  left 
arm  powerless,  and  for  three  years  and  seven  months 
—  until  its  complete  recovery  in  '91  —  I  never 
moved  a  finger  of  it.  But  a  dead  arm  is  a  less  ill- 
natured  companion  than  a  broken  one,  and  with  time 
and  practice  the  right  hand  grew  fully  adequate  to 
the  tasks  of  my  home  in  the  wilderness  —  to  the 
use  of  rifle  and  shot-gun,  the  climbing  of  cliffs,  the 
building  of  log  houses,  the  making  of  thousands  of 


228       A   TRAMP   ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

photographs,  even  the  breaking  of  my  own  broncos. 
But  I  cannot  say  that  the  earlier  fracture  was  as 
easy  to  be  borne. 

For  that  day  it  was  necessary  to  push  on  to 
where  there  would  be  care  if  I  should  need  it,  and 
to  get  to  the  money  awaiting  me  in  the  post-office 
at  Winslow,  for  1  had  but  a  dollar  left.  And  from 
the  treacherous  cliff  to  Winslow  I  walked  without 
rest.  Of  that  hideous  fifty-two  miles  there  is  but 
dim  recollection  in  me.  I  remember  a  wet,  sullen 
landscape  of  widening  valleys  and  diminishing 
hills;  a  muddy  river  fringed  with  scant  cotton- 
woods;  now  and  then  a  lonely  section-house  at 
one  of  which  I  got  a  lunch  of  bread  and  butter;  a 
slow  track-walker  who  spoke  to  me  kindly;  a 
ceaseless  yell  of  coyotes;  the  occasional  blur  and 
roar  of  a  passing  train;  the  cold,  drenching  rain 
all  day,  and  the  shivering  night;  and  through  all 
a  burden  of  aching  legs  and  bursting  head  and  that 
ever-present  arm.  When  at  last  the  little  "  Ari- 
zona Central "  hotel  at  Winslow  welcomed  me  to 
its  shabby  fare,  I  had  been  walking  for  thirty 
continuous  hours,  and  in  a  little  more  than  forty- 
eight  hours  past  had  walked  one  hundred  and 
fifteen  miles. 

The  accommodating  postmaster  filled  my  big 
duck  pockets  with  welcome  mail;  and  after  a 
ravenous  dinner  and  a  short  sleep  I  was  all  right, 


A  STREAK  OF  LEAN  229 

though  weak  and  a  bit  tremulous.  I  was  thor- 
oughly happy,  in  that  receptive  condition  where 
one  can  understand  what  comfort  really  is — and 
who  doesn't  know  how  to  appreciate  that  blessing 
has  only  halt  lived.  Fire  means  nothing  to  a  man 
who  has  never  been  half-frozen,  nor  food  to  him 
who  has  never  been  half-starved. 

And  now  filled,  and  warmed,  and  rested,  a  fra- 
grant regalia  from  thoughtful  friends  on  the  coast 
between  my  teeth,  and  word  from  dear  ones  to  read, 
I  could  sympathize  with  the  boy  who  used  to  cut  his 
finger  "because  it  felt  so  good  when  it  got  well!  " 

Winslow  is  the  lowest  point  touched  by  the  Santa 
Fe  route  in  the  seven  hundred  and  seventy-six 
miles  from  Delhi,  Colorado,  to  Peach  Springs,  Ari- 
zona Territory,  except  the  pueblo  of  Isleta,  which 
has  exactly  the  same  altitude  —  4808  feet  above  the 
sea.  That  will  give  you  a  fair  idea  what  a  great 
upland  the  Southwest  is.  The  town  is  in  the  valley 
of  the  Little  Colorado  —  a  slender  oasis  across  the 
vast  surrounding  deserts.  It  is  a  warm  country, 
and  I  was  glad  to  have  —  as  I  did  at  leaving  —  two 
whole  days  of  walking  on  bare  ground,  after  over 
two  hundred  miles  of  snow.  Luckily  it  was  not 
in  the  season  of  the  terrific  sandstorms  which  are 
so  prevalent  there,  when  travel  is  impossible  and 
trains  are  blockaded  by  sand.  I  find  few  Easterners 
who  travel  out  this  way  have  any  conception  of  the 


230       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

difficnlties  of  operating  a  transcontinental  line. 
If  they  had,  their  foolish  grumbling  would  be  less 
obtrusive.  It  is  one  thing  to  build  and  operate  a 
railroad  one,  two,  or  three  hundred  miles  long  in 
the  flat  Eastern  States,  where  there  is  a  population 
at  every  few  miles,  where  timber,  rock-ballast,, 
fuel,  water,  and  cheap  labor  abound,  and  where 
local  fares  and  freights  pay  expenses  and  divi- 
dends. It  is  quite  another  to  build  and  maintain 
a  road  some  thousands  of  miles  long  through  one  of 
the  bleakest,  barest,  most  inhospitable  areas  on 
earth,  where  there  is  neither  fuel,  water,  tie-lum- 
ber, ballast,  nor  labor;  where  it  is  two  hundred  to 
three  hundred  miles  between  towns  of  a  hundred 
people;  and  where  the  whole  road  is  made  up  of 
grades  that  would  be  thought  a  hard  wagon-road  in 
the  East.  "How  slowly  we  are  going!"  groans 
some  passenger  whose  time  may  be  worth  a  dollar 
a  day;  "I  wonder  why  it  is?"  Nothing,  much, 
except  that  a  ninet3^-ton  engine  is  managing  to  pull 
him  up  a  hill  at  the  foot  of  which  one  of  the  puny 
forty -ton  racers  of  his  country  would  stall.  "  And 
what  are  those  funny  tanks  on  flat  cars  that  we 
pass  at  every  siding?"  Not  much;  they  mean 
only  that  in  this  wilderness  we  have  to  haul  water 
by  the  train-load  to  feed  the  locomotives  and  to 
keep  from  death  the  operators  and  laborers  at 
lonely  little  stations.      The  Atlantic  and  Pacific 


A   STREAK  OP   LEAN  231 

Railroad  is  eight  hundred  and  fifteen  miles  long. 
The  water  it  has  to  haul  is  equivalent  to  hauling 
one  of  those  huge  tank-cars  of  30,000  gallons  of 
water  six  thousand  miles  a  day,  every  day  in  the 
year!  Its  service  of  coal  for  its  own  use  —  exclu- 
sive of  all  the  coal-trains  taken  to  the  coast  as 
freight  —  amounts  to  hauling  one  car,  or  twenty 
tons,  of  coal  thirty  thousand  miles  a  day,  and  every 
day  in  the  year.  The  country,  nine-tenths  of  the 
way,  gives  only  sand  for  a  roadbed.  Whatever 
ballast  is  needed  must  be  quarried  and  hauled  a 
few  hundred  miles.  If  a  bridge  is  swept  away  or 
burned,  the  material  for  the  temporary  and  the 
permanent  repairs  has  to  come  hundreds  of  miles. 
The  ties  and  telegraph  poles  cannot  be  felled  across 
the  track  from  handy  forests,  but  are  transported 
from  one  hundred  to  one  thousand  miles.  The 
eating-houses  are  planted  amid  a  land  which  was 
meant  to  feed  only  its  indigenous  horned  toads  and 
rattlesnakes;  and  every  morsel  of  the  excellent 
meals  comes  from  Kansas  City  and  Los  Angeles. 

Winslow  was  a  curious  little  town,  supported 
entirely  by  the  railroad  and  distant  cattle-ranches. 
It  occurred  to  me  that  I  had  not  seen,  in  any  stream 
since  the  Arkansaw,  such  a  thing  as  a  dam. 
Probably  none  of  them  were  worth  it.  Nor  did  I 
see  one  from  Winslow  on  clear  to  the  coast.  And 
for  that  matter,  I  did  not  see  or  hear  of  a  church. 


232       A  TRAMP  ACROSS   THE  CONTINENT 

except  the  Mexican  and  Indian  structures,  between 
Albuquerque  and  San  Bernardino,  a  distance  of 
over  eight  hundred  miles.  I  could  hardly  blame 
the  Baptists  from  keeping  out  of  so  dry  a  land; 
but  some  of  the  other  denominations,  which  require 
less  water,  might  have  tried  it.  In  most  of  the 
"  towns  "  then  there  were  more  saloons  than  dwell- 
ings; and  sometimes  the  saloon  was  the  only 
building  in  sight  except  the  section-house.  Wins- 
low  was  adorned  at  my  coming  with  very  startling 
posters,  which  were  also  displayed  all  up  and 
down  the  Territory.  I  took  home  with  me  several 
copies,  one  of  which  still  adorns  my  scrapbook.     It 

runs:  — 

—  STOP  AND  READl  — 


J.  H.  BREED 
Having  returned  from  Chicago  with  the  largest  and 

FINEST   STOCK   OF   GOODS 

Ever  brought  into  Arizona,  is  prepared  to  give  the  people  of 

—  WINSLOW  — 

And  surrounding  country  the 

DAMNDEST   BARGAINS 

Ever  heard  of  in  this  part  of  the  World. 


I  Carry 

A    HELL   OF   A    LARGE    ASSORTMENT   OP   GOODS, 

Which  space  will  not  allow  me  to  enumerate  here,  but  if  you 

will  hitch  up,  and  call  on  the  "  OLD  MAN,"  you  can 

bet  your  shirt  tail  he  will  treat  you  right —  and 

sell  you  anything  you  may  want  in  his  line. 

J.  H.  BREED, 

Winslow,  A.T. 


A  STREAK  OF  LEAN  233 

Shadow  and  I  stayed  there  three  days,  resting 
very  hard.  Locke  was  there,  too,  and  was  very 
proud  of  having  fooled  a  conductor  by  some  piteous 
tale  into  bringing  him  all  the  way  from  Manuelito. 
He  left  Winslow  next  day  after  my  arrival,  going 
through  to  California  on  a  freight  train  in  charge 
of  a  carload  of  cattle;  and  I  afterward  learned 
some  curious  facts.  The  cattle  had  been  gathered 
away  south  of  Winslow,  by  "rustlers"  (stock 
thieves),  who  hired  my  "Knight  of  the  Sorrowful 
Countenance"  to  escort  the  stolen  animals  to  a 
confederate  of  theirs  in  Los  Angeles,  and  gave 
him  a  ticket  and  money  therefor.  In  those  days 
emigrant  cars  were  hauled  on  freight  trains,  and 
among  the  other  passengers  on  this  train  was  an 
unworldly  old  clergyman,  with  whom  the  irrepres- 
sible Locke  became  acquainted,  and  who  had  a 
ticket  for  San  Francisco.  As  the  train  approached 
the  coast  Locke  began  to  fear  trouble  —  the  theft 
of  the  cattle  might  be  discovered  and  officers  might 
be  waiting  for  him  in  Los  Angeles.  The  more  he 
thought  the  more  he  disliked  the  prospect.  He 
began  to  tell  the  clergyman  sad  tales  of  San  Fran- 
cisco and  to  paint  the  attractions  of  Los  Angeles  in 
glowing  colors,  and  at  last  persuaded  the  unsus- 
pecting old  man  to  swap  tickets  and  take  charge  of 
the  cattle  from  Mojave  to  Los  Angeles.  At  Mojave 
tliey  parted,  Locke  going  north  to  San  Francisco 


234       A  TRA]MP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

and  the  minister  south  to  Los  Angeles.  I  can 
imagine  the  good  man  found  this  the  hardest  flock 
to  which  he  ever  ministered.  At  every  stop  he 
had  to  get  out  and  see  to  his  charges,  prodding  with 
a  long,  iron-pointed  pole  those  that  had  lain  down 
that  they  might  get  up  before  being  trampled  to 
death,  and  superintending  their  food  and  water. 
When  the  train  arrived  in  Los  Angeles  a  tough- 
looking  fellow  with  an  unorthodox  breath  stepped 
up  to  the  clergyman  and  said :  — 

"  Yo'  did well,    pardner !     Didn't    nobody 

ketch  on  at  all  ?  Come  over  'n'  let's  irrigate. 
Hey?  Don't  never  drink?  Wal,  I'm  blankety* 
blank-blank!  Wal,  take  this,  anyhow,"  and  he 
slipped  a  twenty-dollar  gold-piece  into  the  hand 
of  the  puzzled  minister,  who  walked  away  wonder- 
ing what  it  all  meant,  that  people  in  California 
were  so  gratuitous  of  profanity  and  double  eagles. 


XVI 

WESTERN  ARIZONA 

The  Devil's  Gorge.  —  Into  Snow  Again.  —  The  Great  Pine 
Forest  and  its  Game.  —  A  Lucky  Revolver-shot.  —  The 
King  of  Black-tails.  —  A  Caiion  of  the  ClifE-Dwellers.  — 
The  Greatest  Chasm  on  Earth. 

Starting  early  from  Winslow  on  the  third  day, 
rested  and  feeling  very  robust  save  for  the  pain  in 
my  arm,  I  tramped  twenty-seven  miles  across  the 
smooth,  long  aelivity  of  red  sandstone  dust,  start- 
ing a  few  rabbits  and  finding  in  the  cuts  some 
beautiful  veins  of  satin  spar  and  gypsum.  Early 
evening  found  me  at  the  brink  of  one  of  the 
characteristic  wonders  of  Arizona  —  the  Caiion 
Diablo,  or  "  Devil's  Gorge."  It  is  a  startling  thing 
to  ride  or  walk  across  those  brown  plains,  level 
as  a  floor,  and  to  come  suddenly  and  without  warn- 
ing upon  a  gigantic  split  in  the  earth,  a  split  of 
dizzy  depth  and  great  length.  The  Caiion  Diablo 
is  such  a  crack  over  forty  miles  long.  Where  the 
A.  &  P.  railroad  crosses  it  on  a  wonderful  trestle, 

236 


236       A   TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

the  chasm  is  five  hundred  and  twenty  feet  wide  and 
two  hundred  and  eighteen  feet  deep.  To  appreciate 
its  majesty  one  must  clamber  down  the  terraced 
cliffs  to  the  bottom  and  look  up,  for  distance  is 
always  minified  when  we  look  down  upon  it. 
There  one  finds  that  the  stone  abutments,  which 
from  above  look  no  larger  than  a  carpenter's 
"horse,''  are  really  forty  feet  high,  and  of  propor- 
tionate base. 

My  bed  that  night  —  and  for  a  majority  of  the 
nights  thereafter  when  I  slept  under  a  roof  at  all 
—  was  a  chair;  and  with  the  unceasing  pain  my 
dreams  were  not  of  the  sweetest.  In  all  the  rest 
of  the  journey  until  the  day  before  I  reached  Los 
Angeles  there  were  but  six  towns,  two  of  which  I 
passed  in  the  night ;  and  my  lodgings  were  either 
the  bare  ground,  or  a  chair  tilted  back  beside  the 
stove  of  some  lone  telegraph  station,  for  the 
bunks  in  the  section-houses  were  a  little  too  dirty 
for  even  so  hardened  a  traveller. 

The  noble  snowy  range  of  the  San  Francisco 
peaks,  12,000  feet  high,  drew  nearer  as  we  climbed 
the  steady  grade,  and  there  was  sure  to  be  trouble 
in  their  cold  recesses.  Six  hours,  indeed,  after 
passing  Canon  Diablo,  I  met  an  unpleasant  snow- 
storm, which  chilled  us  the  more  after  the  hot  sun 
at  Winslow.  From  that  on  for  over  one  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  we  were  never  out  of  the  snowj 


WESTERN  ARIZONA  237 

and  for  some  days  it  was  very  troublesome.  All 
the  way  across  the  noble  timber  belt,  eighty  miles 
wide  and  several  hundred  north  and  south,  which 
is  such  a  contrast  to  most  of  the  treeless  plateaus 
of  Arizona,  we  were  wading  much  of  the  time 
knee-deep,  but  with  many  interesting  things  to 
make  us  forget  these  physical  discomforts.  It  is 
a  beautiful  area,  that  great  forest  of  the  Flagstaff 
region  —  thousands  of  square  miles  of  natural 
parks,  unspoiled  by  underbrush,  with  giant,  spar- 
like pines  standing  sentinel  about  the  smooth 
glades  of  knee-deep  grass,  rent  here  and  there  by 
terrific  canons,  bathed  in  the  clear,  exhilarant  air 
of  more  than  six  thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  and 
full  of  game.  In  side-trips  off  through  the  forest 
we  came  now  and  then  upon  all  sorts  of  tracks  in 
the  snow  —  the  rounded  triangle  of  the  rabbit,  the 
beaten  run-way  of  the  lordly  black-tailed  deer,  the 
pronged  radii  of  the  wild  turkey,  the  big,  dainty 
pat-marks  of  the  mountain  lion  and  the  smaller 
ones  of  the  wildcat,  the  dog-like  prints  of  the 
coyote  and  of  foxes  little  and  big,  and  many  more. 
The  day  after  passing  the  little  saw-mill  town  of 
Flagstaff  brought  us  glorious  sport.  The  snow 
was  very  deep,  and  I  should  have  taken  no  extra 
miles  of  it,  lest  I  catch  cold  in  the  wounded  arm ; 
but  we  could  sniff  game  in  the  air  and  who  could 
help  hunting?    We  poked  through  the  drifts  for 


238   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

many  fruitless  miles,  but  late  in  the  afternoon 
came  our  reward.  We  climbed  a  long,  wooded 
hill  against  the  cold  wind,  and  just  as  we  cleared 
its  summit  Shadow  sprang  forward  like  an  arrow, 
with  ringing  tongue.  There  under  the  steep  brow 
of  the  bluff,  not  more  than  thirty  feet  away,  was  a 
royal  buck,  the  largest  black-tail  I  have  ever  looked 
upon.  He  was  already  in  the  air  in  the  first  mad 
plunge  for  flight,  and  I  am  sure  my  first  bullet  had 
sped  before  he  touched  the  snow  again.  Bang! 
bang!  bang!  till  the  six-shooter  was  empty,  and 
before  the  echo  of  the  last  report  had  ceased  to 
ring  through  the  forest,  the  antlered  monarch 
sprang  doubly  high,  pitched  forward  upon  the 
snow,  and  lay  kicking  upon  his  side.  Shadow 
closed  in  with  his  usual  temerity,  and  for  his  pains 
got  a  parting  kick  that  sent  him  twenty  feet  in  a 
howling  sprawl.  By  the  time  I  could  reach  the 
spot  the  deer  was  quite  dead,  and  I  was  greatly 
elated  to  find  that  of  my  six  shots  at  the  flying 
target,  five  had  taken  effect.  One  ball  —  probably 
the  last  —  had  passed  through  the  brain  from 
behind  one  ear  to  in  front  of  the  opposite  eye. 
He  was  a  noble  specimen,  weighing  certainly  over 
two  hundred  pounds,  and  with  seven  spikes  on  his 
magnificent  antlers.  It  seemed  a  bitter  shame  to 
leave  him  there  to  the  wolves  and  ravens;  but  we 
were  at  least  ten  miles  from  the  railroad,  and  there 


WESTERN  ARIZONA  239 

was  no  help  for  it.  I  carved  out  several  pounds 
of  steaks,  wrapped  them  in  a  piece  of  the  hide, 
and  stowed  the  bundle  in  an  accommodating  peck 
pocket  of  my  duck  coat.  And  then  those  antlers 
—  they  must  go  home  with  me !  But  "  how  ?  "  was 
a  perplexing  question.  My  hacks  with  the  hunt- 
ing-knife upon  that  skull  were  very  much  like 
stabbing  a  turtle  with  a  feather.  At  last  I  reloaded 
the  six-shooter,  stood  face  to  face  with  my  game, 
and  drove  bullets  through  his  skull  until  there  was 
a  ring  of  holes  about  the  horns,  and  with  a  little 
knife-work  I  got  them  with  their  uniting  frontlet, 
afterward  shipping  them  to  Los  Angeles  from  the 
first  station. 

Eight  miles  east  of  Flagstaff,  and  about  four 
south  of  the  track,  among  the  noble  pine  timber,  a 
canon  yawns  as  sudden  and  as  sheer  as  Caiion 
Diablo,  but  far  greater.  It  is  a  vast,  zigzag  cleft 
in  the  level  Mogollon  plateau,  eighty  miles  long 
with  its  windings,  nine  hundred  feet  to  the  bottom 
at  its  deepest  point,  and  from  a  few  hundred  feet 
to  half  a  mile  from  brink  to  brink.  It  is  of  dark, 
hard  metamorphic  rock,  and  its  top  is  lined  with 
royal  pines;  while  goodly  trees  in  the  narrow 
channel  of  its  dry  bed  look  from  above  like  dark 
moss.  It  is,  like  Canon  Diablo  and  nearly  all 
hard-rock  gorges  of  the  Southwest,  of  a  peculiar 
terraced  formation,    so  that  its  cliff-sides    seem 


240       A  TRAMP  ACROSS   THE  CONTINENT 

flights  of  gigantic  but  irregular  steps.  Here  I 
found  my  first  ruins  of  the  so-called  cliff-dwellers, 
who  were,  as  modern  archaeology  has  fully  proved, 
only  Pueblo  Indians  like  those  among  whom  I 
live  to-day,  and  not  some  extinct  race.  The 
houses  are  very  small  rooms  of  stone  masonry, 
built  on  these  narrow  shelves  of  the  wild  cliff. 
Many  of  them  are  still  entire ;  and  in  them  I  dug, 
from  under  the  dust  of  centuries,  dried  and 
shrunken  corn-cobs,  bits  of  pottery,  an  ancient 
basket  of  woven  yucca  fibre  exactly  such  as  is  made 
to-day  by  the  Pueblos  of  remote,  cliff-perched 
Moqui,  and  a  few  arrow-heads  and  other  stone 
implements.  There  are  many  hundreds  of  these 
long-forgotten  ruins  in  that  grim  canon;  and  it 
well  repays  as  long  a  visit  as  one  can  give  it. 

It  was  well  past  midnight  when  we  camped  in 
the  snow  a  little  west  of  V/illiams,  and  on  the  sum- 
mit of  the  Arizona  Divide,  7345  feet  above  the 
sea.  There  was  a  pile  of  new-cut  ties,  which  were 
soon  transformed  into  a  cubby-house,  with  a  "  bed- 
stead "  of  two  dry  ties ;  and  there  we  passed  the 
bitter  night  very  cosily,  with  feet  to  a  roaring  fire 
and  stomachs  distended  with  a  huge  meal  of  veni- 
son roasted  in  the  ashes. 

In  the  rocky  fastnesses  of  Johnson's  Canon,  by 
which  the  railroad  slides  down  from  the  shoulders 
of  the  great  range  to  lower  valleys,  we  started  a 


WESTERN   ARIZONA  241 

couple  of  wildcats,  and  a  lucky  shot  finished  one, 
though  I  missed  a  much  easier  shot  at  the  other. 
The  fur  was  in  prime  condition,  and  I  spent  three 
laborious  hours  skinning  the  big  cat  —  a  job  which 
could  never  have  been  accomplished  with  one  hand, 
had  I  worn  false  teeth. 

Nearly  all  day  we  were  in  sight  of  the  strange, 
natural  column  of  stone  sixty  feet  high  and  no 
bigger  around  than  a  barrel,  which  towers  aloft 
upon  a  shoulder  of  Bill  Williams's  Mountain,  and 
is  called  "Bill  Williams's  Monument."  Bill  was 
a  famous  scout  of  early  days,  and  died  in  his  cave 
on  the  mountain  like  a  gray  wolf  in  his  den.  The 
Apaches  caged  him  there,  and  finally  slew  the  grim 
old  hunter,  but  not  until  he  had  sent  thirty-seven 
of  their  braves  ahead  to  the  happy  hunting-grounds. 

Down  the  long,  swift  slope,  from  over  7000  feet 
at  Supai  to  less  than  five  hundred  at  the  Colorado 
Eiver,  we  travelled  swiftly.  The  snow  lay  behind 
us,  the  ground  was  dry,  the  sun  hot,  and  the 
strange  vegetation  of  the  edge  of  the  great  desert 
was  fast  unfolding.  The  days  began  to  grow  too 
warm  for  comfort,  and  the  nights  remained  very 
cold ;  and  this  severe  range  of  temperature,  charac- 
teristic of  desert  countries,  was  very  trying.  The 
country,  too,  afforded  poorer  and  poorer  foraging, 
and  such  meals  as  we  found  would  have  discour- 
aged any  but  athletic  stomachs.     As  for  beds,  I 


242       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

slept  in  less  than  half  a  dozen  in  the  last  eight 
hundred  miles. 

There  was  nothing  worthy  of  record  in  the  days 
to  Peach  Springs,  though  none  were  uninterest- 
ing. At  that  little  station  on  the  railroad  I 
stopped  to  visit  the  greatest  wonder  of  the  world 
—  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado.  A  twenty- 
three  mile  walk  north  from  Peach  Springs  led 
us  first  over  a  low  ridge  of  dreary  gravel  hills, 
and  then  steeply  downward  more  than  three 
thousand  feet,  to  the  bottom  of  the  most  stupend- 
ous abyss  upon  which  the  eye  of  man  has  looked. 
After  the  first  few  miles  the  rough  road  winds  at 
the  bottom  of  the  Peach  Springs  "Wash,"  itself  a 
grander  cafion  than  any  of  Colorado's  wonders. 
From  the  deep  snows  of  three  days  before  we  had 
descended  to  the  tropics,  and  found  verdure  and 
full-leaved  bushes  and  springing  flowers.  Birds 
sang  and  butterflies  hovered  past.  The  wild 
majestic  clilfs  loomed  taller,  nobler,  more  marvel- 
lous, at  every  step,  until  the  .Wash  ran  abruptly 
up  against  a  titanic  pyramid  of  roseate  rock,  and 
was  at  an  end,  and  we  turned  at  right  angles  into 
the  grander  canon  of  Diamond  Creek.  The  sun 
was  already  lost  behind  the  left-hand  walls,  but 
the  rock  domes  and  pinnacles  high  above  were 
glorified  with  the  ruddy  western  glow.  For  another 
mile  we  hurried  on,  clambering  over  rocks,  pene- 


WESTERN   ARIZONA  243 

trating  dense  willow  thickets,  leaping  the  swift 
little  brook  a  score  of  times  —  and  a  long,  jarring 
leap  was  not  the  most  comfortable  thing  for  me 
just  then.  And  at  last,  where  the  cliffs  shrank 
wider  apart,  a  vast  rock  wall,  6000  feet  in  air, 
stood  grimly  facing  us,  and  the  brook's  soft  treble 
was  drowned  in  a  deep,  hoarse  roar  that  swelled 
and  grew  as  we  climbed  the  barricade  of  boulders 
thrown  up  by  the  river  against  the  saucy  impact 
of  the  brook,  and  sank  in  silence  beside  the  Kio 
Colorado. 

I  dragged  together  a  great  pile  of  driftwood  and 
built  a  roaring  fire  upon  the  soft,  white  sand,  for 
there  must  be  no  catching  cold  in  that  arm.  In 
half  an  hour  I  moved  the  fire,  scooped  a  hollow  in 
the  dry  and  heated  sand,  rolled  our  one  blanket 
about  Shadow  and  myself,  and  raked  the  sand  up 
about  us  to  the  neck.  And  there  we  slept,  beside 
the  turbid  river,  whose  hoarse  growl  filled  the 
night,  and  under  the  oppressive  shadow  of  the 
grim  cliffs,  whose  flat  tops  were  more  than  a  mile 
above  our  heads. 


XVII 

THE  VERGE  OF  THE  DESERT 

Exploring  the  Grand  Canon. —  A  Perilous  Jump. —  The 
Edge  of  the  Desert.  —  Kindly  Mrs.  Kelly.  —  The  Tor- 
tures of  Thirst.  —  Shadow  goes  Mad. 

I  SHALL  not  attempt  to  describe  the  Grand  Canon 
of  the  Colorado,  for  language  cannot  touch  that 
utmost  wonder  of  creation.  There  is  but  one 
thing  to  say:  "There  it  is;  go  see  it  for  yourself." 
It  is  incomparably  the  greatest  abyss  on  earth  — 
greatest  in  length,  greatest  in  depth,  greatest  in 
capacity,  and  infinitely  the  most  sublime.  Hun- 
dreds of  miles  long,  more  than  a  mile  deep,  so 
wide  that  the  best  hundred-ton  cannon  ever  made 
could  not  throw  a  missile  from  brink  to  opposite 
brink  in  many  places,  ribbed  with  hundreds  of  side- 
canons  which  would  be  wonders  anywhere  else,  its 
matchless  walls  carved  by  the  eternal  river  into  a 
myriad  towering  sculptures  —  into  domes,  castles, 
towers,  pinnacles,  columns,  spires  —  whose  mate- 
rial is  here  sandstone,  there  volcanic  rock,  yon- 
244 


THE  VERGE   OF  THE  DESERT  245 

der  limestone,  and  again  bewildering  marble  — 
threaded  by  the  greatest  stream  in  half  a  continent, 
which  looks  a  mere  steel  ribbon  at  the  bottom  of 
that  inconceivable  gorge,  the  Grand  Cafion  of 
Colorado  is  that  of  which  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
description.  Even  the  present  eye  cannot  fully 
comprehend  it;  and  one  goes  away  from  the  dazing 
view  crowded  upon  with  thoughts  and  feelings 
which  grow  and  swell  within,  and  become  more 
vivid  instead  of  fainter  as  time  goes  by.  It  is  a 
crying  shame  that  any  American  who  is  able  to 
travel  at  all  should  fail  to  see  nature^s  masterpiece 
upon  this  planet  before  he  fads  abroad  to  visit 
scenes  that  would  not  make  a  visible  scratch  upon 
its  walls.    ' 

Before  daybreak  next  morning  we  were  up  and 
climbing  one  of  the  rugged  terraced  walls  of  a  vast 
butte  to  get  the  view  from  its  crest.  It  was  a 
toilsome  and  painful  climb  to  me,  thanks  to  the 
arm,  and  at  the  easiest  points  it  is  no  easy  task 
for  any  one;  but  the  reward  of  that  groaning, 
sore,  skyward  mile  lay  at  the  top.  From  that 
dizzy  lookout  I  could  see  a  hundred  miles  of  the 
stupendous  workshop  of  the  Colorado  —  that  inef- 
fable wilderness  of  flat-topped  buttes  threaded  by 
the  windings  of  the  vast  cleft. 

The  descent  was  ten  times  worse  than  the  ascent 
—  more  difficult,  more  dangerous,   and  more  pain- 


246       A   TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

ful.  Once  I  backed  over  a  little  ledge,  and  reach- 
ing down  my  foot  found  nothing  below.  A  startled 
glance  over  my  shoulder  showed  a  narrow  cleft 
fifty  feet  deep  just  below  me!  I  had  not  seen  it 
in  my  look  from  farther  along  the  ledge,  whence 
only  the  shelf  which  the  gully  split  was  visible. 
It  was  a  trying  situation.  I  was  too  tired  to  do 
the  old  college-day  trick  of  "chinning"  by  one 
hand,  and  besides,  that  hand  had  a  very  different 
hold  from  a  smooth  horizontal  bar  or  flying  ring. 
The  cleft  was  seven  or  eight  feet  wide,  and  about 
ten  feet  below  me.  I  saw  with  the  first  trial  that 
there  was  no  getting  back  to  the  top  of  my  ledge. 
My  right  arm  was  almost  at  full  length  to  hold  by 
the  edge,  and  my  feet  were  in  a  horizontal  crack 
which  admitted  them  two  or  three  inches  into  the 
cliff.  It  required  the  utmost  caution  to  keep  my 
slung  left  arm  from  being  squeezed  against  the 
rock,  and  such  a  squeeze  would  have  made  me 
faint  with  agony  and  fall.  There  were  but  two 
courses,  —  to  try  to  jump  so  as  to  land  on  the  side 
of  the  cleft,  or  to  hang  on  till  exhausted,  and  then 
drop  to  sure  death.  It  did  not  take  long  to  choose 
or  decide  upon  the  necessary  precautions.  It  was 
a  very  doubtful  undertaking,  —  to  spring  backward 
and  sidewise  from  such  a  foothold,  fall  ten  feet, 
and  gain  four  laterally.  The  edge  of  the  cleft  was 
nearer  my  right  hand  by  several  feet,  but  I  could 


THE  VERGE  OF  THE  DESERT  247 

not  jump  to  the  right,  as  you  may  readily  see  by 
placing  yourself  in  a  similar  attitude,  because  that 
clinging  arm  was  in  the  way.  I  was  tired,  more 
with  pain  than  with  exertion,  and  needed  every 
bit  of  strength  and  agility  for  that  supreme  effort. 
I  shifted  my  feet  into  an  easier  position,  loosened 
my  hand  clutch  for  a  moment,  and  even  hung  my 
upper  teeth  upon  a  point  of  rock  to  ease  my  legs 
a  few  pounds.  For  a  moment  so,  and  then  with 
a  desperate  breath  I  thrust  my  whole  life  into  a 
frantic  effort,  and  sprang  backwards  out  into  the 
air. 

If  the  Colorado  Canon  ran  all  its  seven  hundred 
miles  through  cliffs  of  solid  gold,  I  would  not  make 
that  jump  again  for  the  whole  of  it ;  but  now  that 
it  is  all  over,  I  am  glad  to  have  done  it,  for  the 
sake  of  the  experience,  just  as  I  am  glad  of  a  great 
many  other  things  which  were  unspeakably  fearful 
in  their  time.  It  was  a  well-judged  jump,  and  it 
needed  my  best.  I  landed  upon  my  back  on  the 
outer  edge  of  the  shelf,  whence  a  push  would  have 
rolled  me  half  a  mile,  unless  one  of  those  vicious- 
pointed  jags  below  had  stopped  me  long  enough  to 
cut  me  in  twain,  and  with  my  feet  hanging  over 
the  brink  of  the  cleft.  Shadow  had  found  an  easy 
way,  and  joined  me  in  a  moment.  Of  course  the 
heavy  fall  was  unspeakable  torture  to  the  broken 
arm,  and  for  some  hours  I  lay  there  sick  and  faint 


248       A   TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

in  the  blistering  sun  before  there  was  strength  in 
me  to  continue  the  descent.  You  may  be  very 
sure  that  I  backed  over  no  more  ledges  without 
a  full  knowledge  of  how  the  bottom  was  to  be 
reached,  and  that  it  was  a  great  relief  to  stand 
again  in  the  fantastic  wash  of  Diamond  Creek. 

When  we  had  done  so  much  exploring  as  was 
possible  in  my  crippled  condition,  and  on  the  short 
rations  I  had  been  able  to  bring,  we  started  back 
to  Peach  Springs,  and  arrived  after  a  tiresome  but 
uneventful  walk,  marked  only  by  Shadow's  first 
introduction  to  a  rattlesnake.  In  all  our  trip  to- 
gether it  had  been  weather  too  wintry  for  the 
snakes  to  emerge  from  their  holes  j  but  in  this 
tropical  valley  we  found  a  very  large  one  that  day. 
Shadow's  fearlessness  in  "tackling"  any  and  all 
foes  had  been  sheer  impudent  ignorance,  and  I  was 
glad  to  find  that  there  was  one  creature  which  he 
instinctively  feared.  His  whole  back  was  a-bristle, 
and  his  growls  were  fairly  startling  in  their  unac- 
customed intensity ;  but  he  could  not  be  persuaded 
to  come  near  that  ugly  coil  even  when  the  snake 
was  killed. 

From  Peach  Springs  onward  the  desert  began 
to  assert  itself  more  and  more,  with  rare  little 
oases  which  only  helped  to  emphasize  the  crowd- 
ing barrenness.  In  a  little  canon  not  far  west  of 
Peach  Springs  I  saw  the  first  running  water  visi- 


THE  VERGE  OF  THE  DESERT  249 

ble  from  the  railroad  in  a  good  deal  more  than  two 
hundred  miles ;  and  it  was  only  a  wee  trickle  that 
died  upon  its  sandy  bed  within  a  mile  of  the 
spring.  Near  it,  too,  but  farther  down  the  same 
wash,  whose  underground  flow  was  raised  by  a 
windmill,  was  a  little  patch  of  cabbage,  the  first 
green  thing  I  had  seen  in  six  hundred  miles,  ex- 
cept the  sombre  needles  of  pine  and  juniper.  Out- 
side the  few  and  far-parted  shanty  towns  there 
were  now  no  houses.  The  section-houses  and  sta- 
tions were  merely  box-cars,  with  rude  bunks  and 
tables,  wretched  and  comfortless,  and  none  too 
clean. 

Along  here  we  became  acquainted  with  a  race 
of  filthy  and  unpleasant  Indians,  who  were  in 
world-wide  contrast  with  the  admirable  Pueblos 
of  New  Mexico.  These  unattractive  aborigines, 
ragged,  unwashed,  vile,  and  repulsive-faced,  were 
the  Hualapais  (pronounced  WhoU-ah-pie),  a  dis- 
tant offshoot  of  the  far-superior  Apaches.  They 
were  once  very  warlike,  but  since  they  were 
thrashed  into  submission  by  the  noblest  and  great- 
est of  Indian  fighters,  and  the  most  shamefully 
maligned.  General  George  Crook,  they  have  fallen 
into  harmlessness  and  worthlessness.  They  man- 
ufacture nothing  characteristic,  as  do  nearly  all 
other  aborigines,  and  are  of  very  little  interest. 
Their  shabby  huts  of  sticks,  gunny  sacks,  and  tins 


250       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

are  visible  here  and  there  along  the  railroad,  and 
their  unprepossessing  faces  are  always  to  be  found 
at  the  stations. 

After  a  brief  pause  at  the  then  twenty-house 
metropolis  of  Hackberry  to  inspect  its  low-grade 
copper  mines,  we  made  the  end  of  a  thirty-six-mile 
walk  at  Hualapai,  another  box-car  section-house, 
and  one  of  which  I  shall  always  cherish  pleasant 
memories.  A  big,  savage  white  dog  flew  out  at 
Shadow  with  inhospitable  bark,  and  the  outlook 
was  not  wholly  encouraging.  But  a  little,  thin- 
faced  Irish  woman  drove  off  Shadow's  assailant 
and  bade  me  enter.  Could  I  get  something  to  eat, 
and  sleep  beside  the  stove  (for  I  had  had  to  ship 
my  blanket  home,  since  it  was  too  much  of  a  bur- 
den through  the  midday  heat,  and  with  the  broken 
arm;  and  the  nights  were  cold),  and  do  a  little 
writing  at  the  table  ?  Of  course  I  could,  and  she 
bustled  around  to  get  me  supper. 

"An'  phat's  the  mather  wid  dhe  arrum?"  she 
asked  kindly,  noticing  the  sling ;  and  when  I  told 
her  the  tears  started  in  her  tired  blue  eyes. 

"  Och !  The  poor  lad !  The  poor  brave  lad ! 
Out  in  this  wicked  counthry  wid  a  broken  arrum ! " 
And  she  ran  to  bring  me  a  pie  meant  for  the  men's 
supper,  and  other  section-house  delicacies,  bound  to 
soothe  my  hunger  if  she  could  not  mend  my  bones. 
After  a  generous  supper  she  went  to  the  other  car 


THE  VERGE  OF  THE  DESERT  261 

and  dragged  in  her  own  mattress  and  quilts  and 
made  me  a  luxurious  bed  on  the  floor,  despite  my 
protests.  In  the  morning  she  firmly  refused  the 
customary  payment.  In  vain  I  told  her  I  had 
plenty  of  money  and  could  not  be  content  to 
impose  upon  her.  She  only  said  over  and  over : 
"Ko,  it's  not  meself  '11  tek  the  firsht  nickel  from 
yees,  poor  lad.  Ye'll  need  it,  or  ever  ye  get  out  av 
this  sad  place." 

Two  years  later,  on  a  visit  to  New  Mexico,  I 
came  late  at  night  to  the  lone  section-house  of 
Cubero  and  slept  on  the  floor  till  morning.  At 
breakfast  I  noticed  something  familiar  about  the 
face  of  the  little  old  woman,  but  could  not "  place  " 
her  until  I  had  gone  half  a  mile.  Then  her  tall 
old  husband  and  her  bright  sons  were  astonished 
to  see  the  stranger  fly  back  to  the  house,  throw  his 
arms  about  little  Mrs.  Kelly,  and  give  her  a  sound- 
ing smack  on  her  withered  cheek !  She  was  even 
more  dumfounded  than  they,  until  I  said:  "So 
you  don't  remember  the  'poor  lad'  with  a  grey- 
hound and  a  broken  arm  that  slept  on  the  best 
mattress  at  Hualapai,  and  left  no  pie  for  Kelly's 
supper  ?  "  And  then  there  was  great  laughing  and 
chattering,  and  a  few  stealthy  tears.  I  was  just 
learning  photography,  and  the  miserable  picture  I 
made  then  and  there  of  warm-hearted  Mrs.  Kelly 
and  all  is  one  of  my  pet  mementoes.     The  desert 


25^   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

does  not  share  the  general  broad  hospitality  of  the 
West ;  and  the  night  at  Hualapai  was  one  of  the 
few  oases  in  my  memories  of  half  a  thousand 
miles. 

At  hardly  any  of  the  stations  through  that  vast 
stretch  of  country  is  there  any  water.  In  a  few 
cases  there  are  springs  within  a  few  leagues  which 
can  be  piped  to  the  track,  but  in  most  places  the 
supply  comes  many  scores  of  miles  in  trains  of 
huge  tank-cars,  and  is  delivered  into  barrels  half 
buried  beside  the  track. 

Below  Kingman  we  got  our  first  glimpse  of  that 
tree  of  tatters  which  was  ever  after  to  have  for  me 
a  tragic  association — the  yucca  palm.  They  were 
here  small  and  scrubby  specimens,  much  less  than 
the  yuccas  along  the  Mojave  River,  and  not  at  all 
to  be  compared  to  the  huge  yuccas  of  Old  Mexico. 
Thirst  began  to  torment  us  most  seriously,  too  — 
it  had  long  been  troublesome ;  now  it  was  agoniz- 
ing. Crippled  as  I  was,  and  burdened  with  revol- 
vers, cartridge-belt,  writing  materials,  and  every- 
thing essential  —  for  I  could  buy  nothing  but 
wretched  food  in  a  hundred  miles  at  a  time  —  it 
was  impossible  to  carry  a  canteen ;  and  the  most  I 
could  afford  was  a  quart  bottle  of  water  as  a  day's 
rations  for  Shadow  and  myself.  He  had  to  have 
much  the  larger  share,  which  he  drank  greedily 
from  my  sombrero ;  and  there  was  not  enough  to 


THE  VERGE  OP  THE  DESERT  253 

keep  either  of  us  from  severe  suffering  in  trudging 
thirty  to  forty  miles  a  day  in  that  fearful  sun. 
Had  it  not  been  for  hunter  experience,  which  made 
me  never  touch  a  drop  of  water  before  noon,  no 
matter  how  choked,  and  to  keep  my  salivary  glands 
awake  by  a  smooth  quartz  pebble  under  my  tongue, 
I  do  not  know  what  would  have  become  of  me.  As 
it  was,  more  than  once  we  came  at  night  to  a  sta- 
tion with  tongues  swollen  dry  and  rough  as  files 
projecting  beyond  our  cracked  lips,  and  the  first 
drink  brought  a  spasm  of  pain.  Despite  the  heat 
Shadow  had  been  indefatigable  in  his  pursuit  of 
rabbits.  I  was  averaging  over  thirty -five  miles  a 
day  in  my  haste  to  get  across  that  forbidding  land 
and  to  meet  a  sudden  need  for  my  presence  in  Los 
Angeles,  and  Shadow,  I  believe,  must  have  travelled 
at  least  three  miles  to  my  two. 

But  now  it  had  begun  to  tell  on  him,  and  he  ran 
no  more,  but  dangled  wistfully  at  my  heels,  and 
would  not  eat.  At  Yucca,  after  a  fearful  day,  we 
found  only  a  miserable  shanty  of  shakes,  almost  as 
open  as  a  rail  fence.  There  was  no  covering  to  be 
had  for  love  or  money,  and  the  drip  from  the  water 
tank  made  two-foot  icicles  that  night.  At  last  I 
found  a  torn  and  dirty  gunny -sack  —  and  that  was 
our  bed.  As  usual  now  in  these  wretched  nights, 
Shadow  and  I  lay  spoon-fashion,  huddled  close  to 
keep  from  freezing.     That  night  he  was  strangely 


254        A   TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

uneasy  and  groaned  and  growled  and  twisted  in  his 
sleep,  but  I  thought  nothing  of  it.  Next  morning, 
when  we  had  travelled  some  four  miles  down  the 
track,  he  suddenly  turned  and  fled  back  to  Yucca. 
Utterly  dumfounded  at  this  desertion  by  the  faith- 
ful dog  who  had  always  seemed  haunted  tby  a  fear 
that  he  might  lose  me,  and  who  would  even  spring 
from  his  nap  if  I  changed  my  seat  in  a  room  and 
refuse  to  lie  down  again  until  he  had  been  caressed 
and  convinced  that  I  was  not  going  to  escape,  I 
trudged  back  the  suffering  miles  to  Yucca.  He  was 
lying  in  the  shade  of  the  tank,  and  growled  hoarsely 
as  I  approached.  I  put  a  strap  around  his  neck 
and  led  him  away.  He  followed  peaceably,  and  in 
a  couple  of  miles  I  had  forgotten  my  wonderment 
and  was  busy  with  other  thoughts.  And  on  a  sud- 
den, as  I  strode  carelessly  along,  there  came  a  snarl 
so  unearthly,  so  savage,  so  unlike  any  other  sound 
I  ever  heard,  that  it  froze  my  blood ;  and  there 
within  six  inches  of  my  throat  was  a  wide,  frothy 
mouth  with  sunlit  fangs  more  fearful  than  a  rattle- 
snake's !    Shadow  was  mad  I 


XVIII 

THE  WORST  OF  IT 

A  Fight  for  Life.  —  Shadow's  Grave.  — The  Heart  of  the 
Desert.  —  The  Story  the  Skull  told  me. 

If  I  had  never  <^  wasted  "  time  in  learning  to  box 
and  wrestle  there  would  have  been  an  end  of  me. 
But  the  trained  muscles  awaited  no  conscious  tele- 
gram from  the  brain,  but  acted  on  their  own  motion 
as  swiftly  and  as  rightly  as  the  eye  protects  itself 
against  a  sudden  blow.  Ducking  back  my  head,  I 
threw  the  whole  force  and  weight  of  legs,  arm,  and 
body  into  a  tremendous  kick  and  a  simultaneous 
wild  thrust  upon  the  leading-strap.  My  foot  caught 
Shadow  glancingly  on  the  chest  and  he  went  rolling 
down  the  thirty-foot  embankment.  But  he  was 
upon  his  feet  again  in  an  instant  and  sprang  wolf- 
ishly  toward  me.  I  snatched  at  the  heavy  six- 
shooter,  but  it  had  worked  around  to  the  middle  of 
my  back,  and  was  hampered  by  the  heavy-pocketed, 
long  duck  coat.    Before  it  was  even  loosened  in  its 

scabbard,  the  dog  was  within  six  feet.     I  sprang  to 

265 


256       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

the  edge  of  the  bank,  and  threw  all  my  force  into  a 
kick  for  life.  It  caught  him  squarely  under  the 
chin,  and  rolled  him  again  violently  to  the  bottom. 
Up  and  back  he  came,  like  the  rebound  of  a  rubber 
ball,  and  just  as  he  was  within  four  feet  I  wrested 
the  Colt  loose,  "threw  it  down"  with  the  swift 
instinctive  aim  of  long  practice,  and  pulled  the  trig- 
ger even  as  the  muzzle  fell.  The  wild  tongue  of 
flame  burnt  his  very  face,  and  he  dropped.  But  in 
an  instant  he  was  up  again  and  fled  shrieking  across 
the  barren  plain.  The  heavy  ball  had  creased  his 
skull  and  buried  itself  in  his  flank.  I  knew  the 
horrors  of  a  gunshot  wound;  my  poor  chum 
should  never  go  to  die  by  inches  the  hideous  death 
of  the  desert.  A  great  wave  of  love  swept  through 
me  and  drowned  my  horror.  I  had  tried  to  kill 
him  to  save  myself,  now  I  must  kill  him  to  save 
him  from  the  most  inconceivable  of  agonies.  My 
trembling  nerves  froze  to  steel ;  I  must  not  miss ! 
I  would  not !  I  dropped  on  one  knee,  caught  his 
course,  calculated  his  speed,  and  the  spiteful  crack 
of  the  six-shooter  smote  again  upon  the  torpid  air. 
He  was  a  full  hundred  and  fifty  yards  away,  flying 
like  the  wind,  when  the  merciful  lead  outstripped 
and  caught  him  and  threw  him  in  a  wild  somer- 
sault of  his  own  momentum.  He  never  kicked  or 
moved,  but  lay  there  in  a  limp,  black  tangle,  mo- 
tionless forever. 


THE  WORST  OF  IT  257 

Weak  and  faint  and  heavy-hearted,  I  dug  with 
my  hunting-knife  a  little  grave  beneath  a  tattered 
yucca  and  laid  the  poor  clay  tenderly  therein,  and 
drew  over  it  a  coverlet  of  burning  sand,  and  piled 
rough  lava  fragments  on  it  to  cheat  the  prowling 
coyote,  and  "  blazed  ^^  the  tattered  tree.  There 
I  left  poor  Shadow  to  his  last  long  sleep,  and  went 
alone  down  the  bitter  desert. 

The  country  was  fast  turning  more  infinitely 
desolate.  Wider  and  wider  were  the  reaches  of 
molten  sand,  whose  alkaline  clouds  swept  in  gusts 
up  the  valley,  choking  and  stinging  throat  and  eyes 
and  nostrils.  Then  I  came  down  into  the  green 
valley  of  the  Colorado,  where  were  little  ponds  and 
waving  grasses  and  willow  thickets  and  little  brush 
rancherias  of  the  Mojave  Indians.  Swarthy  women 
were  washing  at  the  little  pools ;  and  in  a  larger 
pond,  left  by  the  river  in  high  water,  several 
Mojave  men  were  fishing  in  an  odd  fashion.  Three 
of  them  had  each  a  huge  osier  basket,  canoe-shaped, 
ten  feet  long  and  three  feet  wide.  These  they 
submerged  in  the  water,  while  three  other  Indians 
splashed  greatly  with  long  poles.  When  the  fish- 
ers lifted  their  basket-nets,  each  had  a  lot  of  sil- 
very, smelt-like  fish ;  and  these  they  tossed  deftly 
into  deep  creels  slung  to  their  backs. 

They  are  a  curious  and  physically  admirable 
race,  these  Mojaves  —  tall  and  lithe  and  matchless 


258       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

runners  for  a  day  or  two  at  a  pull ;  superb  swim- 
mers, full  of  strange  customs,  but  sadly  degener- 
ate in  morals.  In  warm  weather  —  and  it  is  hardly 
ever  cold  in  their  tropic  valley — the  men  wear 
only  a  breech-clout,  and  the  women  a  single  garment 
generally  made  of  flaming  bandannas  bought  in  the 
piece.  They  dress  their  long  hair  in  curious  ropes, 
and  plaster  the  scalp  with  mud,  tattoo  the  chin  in 
wild  patterns,  and  have  no  ornaments  save  fichus, 
which  they  make  with  great  skill  from  tiny  glass 
beads.  They  have  been  practising  cremation  from 
time  immemorial,  and  were  just  having  a  funeral 
near  East  Bridge.  The  corpse,  dressed  in  its  best, 
was  stretched  on  top  of  a  huge  pile  of  dry  old  ties 
from  the  railroad,  and  the  chief  mourner  touched  a 
torch  to  the  heap  of  dry  brush  at  the  bottom.  As 
the  flames  sprang  aloft  and  hissed  and  roared,  the 
mourners  stood  in  a  gloomy  ring,  chanting  a  wild 
refrain  ;  and  as  the  savage  fire  and  savage  song 
went  on,  they  threw  upon  the  pyre  from  time  to 
time  all  the  earthly  possessions  of  the  deceased, 
and  one  by  one  their  own  garments  and  ornaments. 
Passing  the  strange,  jagged  spires  of  peaks,  which 
are  called  the  Needles  because  two  of  them  have 
natural  eyelets, — though  these  are  visible  only 
from  the  canon,  and  not  from  the  railroad,  —  I 
crossed  the  1300-foot  drawbridge,  now  abandoned 
for  a  fine  new  cantilever,  a  dozen  miles  below,  and 


THE  WORST  OF   IT  259 

stood  upon  the  there  forbidding  soil  of  Calif orniau 
A  night  at  the  rather  pretty  little  railroad  town  of 
Needles,  and  I  started  off  again  into  the  grim 
Mojave  Desert.  It  was  the  beginning  of  two  hun- 
dred miles  whose  sufferings  far  outweighed  all  that 
had  gone  before.  There  were  five  telegraph  sta- 
tions in  that  awful  stretch,  and  the  largest  town 
in  one  hundred  and  sixty  miles  had  three  houses. 
There  were  not  even  section-men  at  the  rare  sta- 
tions—  only  a  telegraph  operator  and  a  track- 
walker. They  had  little  to  eat  for  themselves  and 
could  seldom  spare  me  anything.  My  board  was 
the  daily  quart  of  water  and  a  cake  of  chocolate  — 
which  contains  more  nutriment  in  the  same  bulk 
than  anything  else  available,  and  which  was  all  I 
could  carry.  By  night  I  covered  myself  with  sand 
or  slept  in  a  wooden  chair  beside  the  stove  of  a  lit- 
tle telegraph  office,  getting  up  a  dozen  times  to 
replenish  the  fire,  and  sorely,  missing  my  absent 
blanket.  By  day  I  trudged  on  through  the  blind- 
ing glow,  suffering  unspeakably  from  thirst  and  a 
good  deal  still  from  the  broken  bone,  which  was 
now  rapidly  knitting.  The  glare  of  that  desert 
sun  was  murderous,  and  still  worse  the  reflection 
from  the  molten  sands,  which  the  eye  could  not 
escape.  At  last  I  took  to  walking  nights,  since 
there  was  a  full  moon,  and  trying  —  but  with  scant 
success  —  to  sleep  by  day.     Starting  out  from  the 


260       A  TRAMP  ACROSS   THE  CONTINENT 

little  bunk-house  of  Amboy  at  sunset,  I  left  behind 
the  beloved  low  shoes  which  I  had  worn  3300  miles, 
and  had  just  changed  for  the  night  because  they 
leaked  sand  so  badly.  I  travelled  twenty  miles 
before  missing  them  from  my  belt,  and  made  every 
effort  to  recover  them.  But  there  was  no  telegraph 
station ;  and  before  my  letter  reached  him  the  track- 
walker had  burned  them  up,  and  so  I  lost  two  real 
friends. 

That  night,  to  make  a  short  cut,  I  tramped 
through  a  long,  low  range  of  the  peculiar  hills  of 
the  desert.  As  I  trudged  along  over  the  white, 
bare  sand,  or  the  areas  of  black,  volcanic  pebbles, 
the  moonlight  gleam  on  some  peculiar  object  drew 
me  over  a  few  hundred  feet  to  the  right  of  my 
pathless  course.  As  I  came  nearer  and  nearer,  a 
thrill  of  awe  ran  through  me,  for  the  strange  object 
slowly  took  shape  to  my  eyes  —  a  shape  hideously 
suggestive  in  this  desolate  spot.  As  I  knelt  on  the 
barren  sands  and  lifted  that  bleached  and  flinty 
skull,  or  looked  around  at  the  bones  which  had 
once  belonged  to  the  same  frame,  now  wide-scat- 
tered by  the  snarling  coyote,  there  rose  before  my 
eye  the  tragedy  of  that  Golgotha,  vivid  as  day. 

I  saw  the  summer  glare  of  the  merciless  desert, 
the  sun  like  fire  overhead,  the  sand  like  molten 
lead  below ;  the  slow  ox-teams  of  a  little  band  of 
immigrants  toiling  in  agony  across  that  plain   of 


THE   WORST   OF    IT  261 

death,  whose  drivers,  crazed  by  the  fierce  smiting 
of  the  sun  reeled  stumblingly  along,  their  cracked 
tongues  unable  even  to  curse;  while  the  great, 
patient  oxen,  lifting  their  feet  from  the  blistering 
soil,  shook  them  and  bawled  piteously.  1  saw  the 
gaunt  faces  as  the  blood-warm  water  in  the  kegs 
fell  lower  and  lower,  till  one  desperate  man  set  out 
to  seek  for  water  among  the  nearest  mountains.  I 
saw  him  turn  his  back  resolutely  to  the  caravan 
and  push  bravely  toward  the  desolate,  rocky,  tree- 
less hills,  while  sun  and  sand  grew  yet  more  fear- 
ful in  their  white  glow;  and  the  strong  breeze  in 
his  face  brought  no  life,  but  was  as  the  breath  of 
a  fiery  furnace.  I  saw  him  plod  on  through  the 
canons  drifted  high  with  sand ;  over  sharp,  rocky 
spurs  and  down  desolate  defiles  where  the  feet  of 
coyotes  for  thousands  of  years  have  worn  deep 
pathways  in  the  limestone  floor;  tearing  up  with 
trembling  hands  the  sands  of  some  mountain 
arroyo,  only  to  find  them  still  parched  and  burn- 
ing, deep  as  his  arm  could  reach.  He  struggled 
on  for  weary  miles,  gasping,  burning,  failing  in 
strength  and  courage,  until  nature  could  no  more, 
and  he  sank  exhausted  upon  the  bare  ground,  half 
swooning  and  half  delirious.  But  the  demon  of 
thirst  soon  dragged  him  to  his  feet  again,  and  bade 
him  return  to  the  wagons;  and  he  started  back. 
But  blinded  eyes  and  shrivelling  brain  were  treach- 


262   A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

erous  guides,  and  he  wandered  farther  and  farther 
from  salvation,  until  at  last  the  knowledge  that  he 
was  lost  seared  itself  upon  his  mind.  That  sobered 
him,  and  with  desperate  coolness  he  tried  to  get 
his  bearings.     But  it  was  too  late.     .     .     . 

Next  day  the  lying  mirage  nearly  fooled  me  to  a 
like  end.  I  had  camped,  unable  to  reach  a  station, 
my  water  was  gone,  and  all  day  I  had  been  half 
dead  with  thirst.  And  down  in  yonder  seething 
valley  I  saw  a  broad,  blue  lake,  its  very  ripples 
visible  as  they  danced  in  the  westering  sun.  It 
was  as  hard  an  effort  of  the  will  as  I  ever  made 
not  to  rush  down  the  long,  gentle  slope  and  throw 
myself  into  that  azure  paradise  and  soak  and  drink 
— but  I  knew  there  was  no  water  there,  simply 
because  so  large  a  lake  does  not  exist  in  the  desert ; 
and  that  even  if  it  were  water  it  would  be  poison, 
since  there  was  neither  inlet  nor  outlet  to  that  bowl 
of  a  valley.  And  so  with  tottering  legs,  and  blear 
eyes  that  dared  not  look  back,  and  cracked  lips  and 
tongue,  I  ran  away  until  out  of  sight  behind  a 
friendly  ridge;  and  after  two  fearful  hours  fell 
exhausted  under  a  tank  by  the  railroad. 

On  over  the  sandy,  volcanic  wastes,  past  the  bar- 
ren, contorted  ranges  of  savage  ruggedness  and 
wonderful  color,  I  trudged  rapidly  as  possible; 
and  still  neither  too  hurried  nor  too  beset  with  dis- 
comfort to  extract  a  great  deal  of  interest  and  infor- 


THE   WORST   OF  IT  263 

mation  from  every  cruel  day.  This  is  a  country  of 
strange  things ;  but  none  stranger  than  the  appear- 
ance of  its  mountains.  They  are  the  barest,  bar- 
renest,  most  inhospitable-looking  peaks  in  the 
whole  world ;  and  they  are  as  uncordial  as  they 
look.  Many  a  good  man  has  left  his  bones  to 
bleach  beside  their  cliffs  or  in  their  death-trap  val- 
leys. They  are  peculiar  in  the  abrupt  fashion  in 
which  they  rise  from  the  plain,  and  more  so  in 
their  utter  destitution  of  vegetable  life  in  any 
form.  But  strangest  of  all  is  their  color.  The 
prevailing  hue  is  a  soft,  dark,  red  brown,  or  occa- 
sionally a  tender  purple ;  but  here  and  there  upon 
this  deep  background  are  curious  light  patches, 
where  the  fine  sand  of  the  desert  has  been  whirled 
aloft  and  swept  along  by  the  mighty  winds  so  com- 
mon there,  and  rained  down  upon  the  mountain 
slopes  where  it  forms  deposits  scores  of  feet  iii 
depth,  and  acres  in  extent.  The  rock  bases  of 
the  mountains  are  completely  buried  in  gentle  axi- 
clivities  of  sand,  while  the  cream  or  fawn-colored 
patches  are  often  to  be  seen  many  hundreds  of 
feet  above  the  surrounding  level.  These  moun- 
tains are  not  very  high  —  none,  I  should  judge, 
over  5000  or  6000  feet  —  but  very  vigorous  in 
outline,  and,  at  certain  stages  of  the  daylight, 
very  beautiful  in  color.  Nearly  all,  too,  are  rich 
in  mineral,  and  will  pay  if  the  water  problem  is 
ever  solved  —  as  it  is  not  too  likely  to  be. 


XIX 

ON  THE  HOME  STRETCH 

A  Desert  Cut-Off.  —  The  One  Good  Chum. —Plucky  Munier. 
—  Days  of  Horror.  —  Into  *♦  God's  Country  "  at  Last. 

Getting  to  Daggett,  the  station  for  the  rich  sil- 
ver-mining camp  of  Calico,  about  midday,  I  took 
a  brief  rest  and  then  turned  southward.  Here  I 
was  to  leave  the  railroad  for  good,  and  strike  out 
across  the  desert  and  over  the  ranges  to  "God's 
country  "  on  the  other  side.  The  California  South- 
ern Eailway,  by  which  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific 
Kailroad  now  runs  to  Los  Angeles,  was  not  yet 
built ;  and  this  cut-off  on  foot  was  a  serious  matter. 
Just  as  I  was  starting  off,  I  found  a  new  companion 
who  was  poor  and  ragged,  but  infinitely  more  of  a 
man  than  those  who  had  shared  —  and  half  spoiled 
—  short  stretches  earlier  in  the  tramp.  He  was  a 
young  French  Canadian  named  Albert  Munier; 
had  come  to  the  mining  camp  of  Calico,  and  been 
fleeced  by  his  absconding  employer ;  and  now,  pen- 
niless and  ragged,  wished  to  get  to  Los  Angeles. 
264 


ON  THE  HOME  STRETCH  265 

Would  I  mind  if  he  walked  with  me  ?  There  was 
a  pleasant  frankness  in  his  face ;  and  I  promptly 
said  "  Come  on ! " 

Neither  of  us  will  be  likely  to  forget  that  after- 
noon, the  most  awful  of  all  my  journey.  We 
missed  the  trail,  and  for  six  anguished  hours  stag- 
gered through  the  heavy  sand,  over  fiery  hills  and 
down  hollows  that  were  like  a  furnace.  I  had 
thought  I  knew  thirst  before;  but  it  was  never 
understood  until  that  afternoon.  A  score  of  times 
I  thought  we  must  fall  and  die  there,  and  only 
mulish  will  kept  us  up.  The  blood-warm  water 
from  his  canteen  and  my  beer-bottle  —  for  I 
had  long  ago  to  discard  my  ponderous  canteen  — 
seemed  to  have  no  effect  whatever.  The  only 
relief  we  found  was  when  we  built  a  hot  fire  of  the 
roots  of  the  greasewood,  and  over  its  malodorous 
ashes  made  chocolate  in  a  tomato-can  Munier  had 
brought  along.  The  sand  was  ankle-deep,  and 
flung  the  ghastly  heat  back  in  our  faces  with  blind- 
ing power. 

For  the  last  five  miles  I  had  to  help  poor  Munier 
along  by  the  arm.  And  just  at  sunset  we  came, 
more  dead  than  alive,  to  Stoddard's  Wells,  the 
only  water  in  fifty  miles.  There  was  a  little  flow 
of  water  from  a  tunnel  in  the  hill,  and  a  miserable 
"  house  "  of  split  shakes,  inhabited  by  the  two  only 
absolute   curs   I   met  in   the  nearly  five  months. 


WQ       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

They  would  not  let  us  sleep  in  the  house,  though  I 
offered  a  handful  of  silver  for  the  use  of  a  battered 
chair  beside  the  fire,  for  my  arm  showed  bad 
symptoms  that  day,  and  I  dared  not  catch  cold  in 
it.  They  said  they  did  not  keep  a  house  for  tramps, 
and  when  I  showed  them  a  pocketful  of  creden- 
tials, waved  them  aside,  vowing  they  could  not 
read,  which  was  a  lie.  They  ordered  us  out  of 
the  house,  and  stood  in  the  door  berating  us  in  the 
vilest  language.  Our  blood  boiled,  but  we  could 
not  even  take  the  old  savage  satisfaction  of  thrash- 
ing them,  for  they  were  wretched,  hacking  con- 
sumptives, come  here  to  stave  off  death,  and  even 
a  cripple  could  not  strike  them. 

A  grim  night  we  passed  by  our  little  camp-fire 
of  greasewood  twigs  —  4000  feet  above  the  sea, 
and  chilled  by  a  fierce  wind  from  off  the  snow 
peaks  of  the  Sierra  Madre.  I  was  worn  out,  for 
my  day's  walk  had  been  forty  miles,  —  eighteen 
before  Munier  joined  me  at  Daggett,  —  and  miles  of 
great  suffering,  but  I  dared  not  go  to  sleep.  At 
last  weariness  overcame  me,  and  I  dropped  off. 
When  I  woke  Munier  was  sitting  and  shivering  by 
the  little  fire,  and  feeding  it  with  weeds,  while  I 
was  warmly  wrapped  in  his  huge  old  ulster !  The 
unselfish  fellow  had  gone  cold  himself  to  save  me 
from  a  chill  that  he  knew  would  be  dangerous. 

The  next  day's  equally  painful  tramp  was  mostly 


ON  THE  HOME  STRETCH  267 

down  hill,  but  even  more  torrid  as  we  came  to 
lower  altitudes.  Never  was  there  so  blessed  a 
sight  as  when,  at  last,  we  looked  down  'from  the 
top  of  a  high  ridge,  which  has  since  been  dis- 
covered to  be  a  mountain  of  pure  marble,  to  a 
green  ribbon  of  a  valley,  two  hundred  yards  wide, 
with  noble  cotton-woods,  and  a  broad,  clear,  shallow 
river,  the  Mojave.  We  stopped  at  a  pleasant  little 
ranch,  where  gray-headed  Rogers  had  his  2000 
snowy-fleeced  Angora  goats,  and  next  day,  crossing 
the  river  where  the  little  railroad  town  of  Victor 
has  since  been  built,  plodded  up  the  long,  sandy 
slope  toward  the  noble  range  which  shuts  off  the 
grimmest  of  deserts  from  the  Eden  of  the  world. 
It  was  another  hard  day,  but  now  there  was  the 
scant  shade  of  junipers  and  thirty-foot  yucca  palms 
under  which  to  rest.  Poor  Munier  was  suffering 
terribly.  He  pulled  off  his  shoes  and  showed  me 
his  roasted  feet,  which  were  actually  covered, 
above  and  below,  with  blisters  large  as  a  half- 
dollar.  But  his  pluck  was  splendid,  and  he  strug- 
gled on,  smothering  his  groans,  joking  as  best  he 
could,  and  never  grumbling. 

Up  the  long,  smooth  slope  we  came  with  the 
afternoon,  paused  on  the  brink  of  the  sudden 
"jumping-off  place,"  and  plunged  down  into  the 
steep  depths  of  the  strange  Cajon  (box  pass,  pro- 
nounced Cah-Jione)  Pass.     A  few  miles  of  barren 


268       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

gullies  and  ridges,  and  we  came  to  a  little  house 
beside  a  tender  green  where  the  sands  of  the 
arroyo  thanked  a  tiny  spring.  And  here  poor 
Munier  fell,  unable  to  move  another  step.  I  made 
arrangements  at  the  house  for  him,  gave  him  half 
my  dwindling  money ;  and  with  a  hearty  and  regret- 
ful hand-clasp  left  the  brave  fellow  and  hurried  on 
down  the  canon. 

Soon  a  wee  thread  of  water  trickled  along  the 
wet  sand,  caressing  grateful  blades  of  grass ;  and 
it  grew  in  volume  and  in  voice  as  we  sped  side  by 
side  down  the  deepening  gorge.  I  began  to  cross 
musical  brooklets,  that  flashed  down  the  caiion's 
walls  to  the  central  stream.  The  deep-green  man- 
zanito  bushes,  with  their  red-satin  bark  and  their 
tiny  peduncles  of  snow-white  blossoms,  were  all 
about ;  and  the  soft  night  wind  that  drifted  up  the 
Pass  seemed  fraught  with  the  odors  of  Araby  the 
blest.  Then  came  the  Toil-Gate,  a  lovely  little 
villa  framed  in  orchards,  and  with  a  trout-pond 
under  its  big  cotton-woods  j  and  I  broke  into  song 
at  this  forerunner  of  the  new  Eden. 

In  the  soft,  sweet  evening  I  came  to  the  first 
fence  I  had  seen  in  five  hundred  miles,  and  an 
orchard  in  fragrant  bloom  of  peach  and  apricot, 
and  to  the  hospitable  little  farmhouse  that  used  to 
be  "Vincent's."  Ah,  such  luxury!  When  kindly 
Mrs.  Vincent  knew  me,  she  spread  such  a  supper  as 


ON  THE  HOME  STRETCH  269 

my  long-abused  stomach  had  lost  all  memory  of; 
and  for  that  I  had  had  no  fruit  in  so  long,  she  gave 
me  in  sumptuous  array  about  my  plate  fourteen 
kinds  of  delicious  home-made  preserves !  That 
night,  for  the  first  time  since  breaking  my  arm,  I 
was  able  to  get  off  all  my  clothing,  and  revel  in 
a  glorious  bath  and  a  spotless  bed. 

Next  day  I  trotted  gayly  down  the  cafion,  climbed 
over  the  western  wall,  and  struck  out  along  the 
foothills.  Now  I  was  truly  in  "  God's  country  "  — 
the  real  Southern  California,  which  is  peerless. 

It  was  the  last  day  of  January.  The  ground 
was  carpeted  with  myriad  wild  flowers,  birds  filled 
the  air  with  song,  and  clouds  of  butterflies  fluttered 
past  me.  I  waded  clear,  icy  trout  brooks,  startled 
innumerable  flocks  of  quail,  and  ate  fruit  from  the 
gold-laden  trees  of  the  first  orange  orchards  I 
had  ever  seen.  Pretty  Pomona  gave  me  pleasant 
lodgings  that  night,  and  next  day,  February  1, 1885, 
a  thirty-mile  walk  through  beautiful  towns,  past 
the  picturesque  old  Mission  of  San  Gabriel,  and 
down  a  matchless  valley,  brought  me  at  midnight 
to  my  unknown  home  in  the  City  of  the  Angels. 

When  I  pulled  off  my  shoes  from  tired  feet  that 
night,  I  had  walked  since  leaving  Cincinnati  in  my 
roundabout  course  a  fraction  over  3507  miles.  I 
had  been  out  one  hundred  and  forty-three  days, 
and   had    crossed    eight    States   and    Territories, 


270       A  TRAMP  ACROSS  THE  CONTINENT 

nearly  all  of  them  along  their  greatest  length. 
My  arm  had  knitted  perfectly,  and  in  a  few  days 
more  was  out  of  its  bandages.  It  was  a  good  job 
of  amateur  surgery,  and  is  fully  as  straight  and  as 
strong  as  its  mate.  The  longest  and  happiest 
"  tramp "  ever  made  for  pure  pleasure  was  over ; 
and  at  nine  o^clock  next  morning  I  was  in  the 
harness,  as  city  editor  of  the  Los  Ang,eles.  Daily 
Times, 


Typography  by  J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.,  BostM. 
Prtuwork  by  Berwick  &  Smith,  Boston. 


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